Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes
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In England … everything becomes professional … even the rogues of that island are pedants.
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An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
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The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?
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Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.
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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?
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Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
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The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
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One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.
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Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.
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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.
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He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.
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Virtue is reason which has become energy.
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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.
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What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.
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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.
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Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.
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Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.
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Wie die Senatoren der Römer sind die wahren Künstler ein Volk von Königen.
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Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.
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Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.
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One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.
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The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.
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The artist should have as little desire to rule as to serve. He can only create, do nothing but create, and so help the state only by … exalting politicians and economists into artists.