Top 150 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

52. “Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

53. “Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

54. “It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

55. “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.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

56. “The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous alternation of self-creation and self-destruction. If it is only instinct, then it is childlike, childish, or silly; if it is only intention, it becomes affectation.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

57. “Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

58. “Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

59. “Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

60. “Only through religion can logic develop into philosophy, only from this source stems that which makes philosophy more than science. And without religion we will have only novels, or the triviality today called belles lettres instead of an eternally rich and infinite poetry.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

61. “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.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

62. “Separate religion from morality, and you have the true energy for evil within man, the terrible, cruel, devastating, and inhuman principle which naturally lies in his spirit. Here the division of the indivisible punishes itself most awfully.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

63. “He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

64. “There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

65. “Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is this public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

66. “One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

67. “There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master’s master, the genius of the age.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

68. “The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

69. “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.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

70. “Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

71. “Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

72. “Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

73. “Philosophy still moves too much straight ahead, and is not yet cyclical enough.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

74. “A good preface must be the root and the square of the book at the same time.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

75. “Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

76. “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.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

77. “How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

78. “Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

79. “The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In this great personality of mankind, God became man.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

80. “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.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

81. “God is each truly and exalted thing, therefore the individual himself to the highest degree. But are not nature and the world individuals?”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

82. “All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

83. “The highest good and solely useful is liberal education.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

84. “Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

85. “The historian is a prophet looking backward.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

86. “Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

87. “Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

88. “It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

89. “In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

90. “Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

91. “A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

92. “There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

93. “Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

94. “It is individuality which is the original and eternal within man; personality doesn’t matter so much. To pursue the education anddevelopment of this individuality as one’s highest vocation would be a divine egoism.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

95. “Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

96. “He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

97. “There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn’t know what his contemporaries are.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

98. “Plato’s philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

99. “Nothing truly convincing – which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill – has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

100. “The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a highercaste, not ennobled by birth, however, but by deliberate self-initiation.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel