Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes
Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.
Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.
Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.
Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.
Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.
Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.
A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.
Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.
An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.
Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.
Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.
Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.
Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.
Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself.
As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.
What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.
Only he who possesses a personal religion, an original view of infinity, can be an artist.
What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.
One of two things is usually lacking in the so-called Philosophy of Art: either philosophy or art.
The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.
Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.
Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.
Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.
About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.
Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude.
Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.
Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.
Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.
A classification is a definition comprising a system of definitions.
Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.
Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.
Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine.
Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.
