Best 170 quotes of Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel on MyQuotes

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

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.

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.

A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form.

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

All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods.

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.

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

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

All thinking of the religious man is etymological, a reduction of all concepts to the original intuition, to the characteristic.

An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.

An artist is he who has his center within himself. He who lacks this must choose a particular leader and mediator outside of himself, not forever, however, but only at first. For man cannot exist without a living center, and if he does not have it within himself, he may seek it only in a human being. Only a human being and his center can stimulate and awaken that of another.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

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.

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

As long as the artist invents and is inspired, he remains in a constrained state of mind, at least for the purpose of communication. He then wants to say everything, which is the wrong tendency of young geniuses or the right prejudice of old bunglers. Thus, he fails to recognize the value and dignity of self-restraint, which is indeed for both the artist and the man the first and the last, the most necessary and the highest goal.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.

Because Christianity is a religion of death, it could be treated with the utmost realism, and it could have its orgies, just likethe old religion of nature and life.

Both in their origins and effects, boredom and stuffy air resemble each other. They are usually generated whenever a large number of people gather together in a closed room.

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.

Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.

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

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.

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.

Even a friendly conversation which cannot be at any given moment be broken off voluntarily with complete arbitrariness has something illiberal about it. An artist, however, who is able and wants to express himself completely, who keeps nothing to himself and would wish to say everything he knows, is very much to be pitied.

Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.

Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit.

Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.

Every relationship of man to the infinite is religion, namely of a man in the full abundance of his humanity. Whenever a mathematician calculates infinity, that, to be sure, is not religion. Infinity conceived in this abundance is the Godhead.

Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.

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.

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.

German writings attain popularity through a great name, or through personalities, or through good connections, or through effort,or through moderate immorality, or through accomplished incomprehensibility, or through harmonious platitude, or through versatile boredom, or through constant striving after the absolute.

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

God the father, and even more often the devil himself, appears at times in the place of fate in the modern tragedy. Why is it thatthis has not induced any scholar to develop a theory of the diabolical genre?

Good drama must be drastic.

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself.

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

Honor is the mysticism of legality

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.

If one believes philosophers, then what we call religion is only a deliberately popularized or an instinctively artless philosophy. Poets seem to consider religion rather as a variation of poetry which by misjudging its proper beautiful game takes itself too seriously and one-sidedly. Philosophy, however, admits and recognizes that it can begin and complete itself only with religion. Poetry seeks only to strive for the infinite and despises worldly utility and culture, which are the true antitheses of religion. Eternal peace among artists is thus not far away.

If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.

If the essence of cynicism consists in preferring nature to art, virtue to beauty and science; in not bothering about the letter of things -- to which the Stoic strictly adheres -- but in looking up to the spirit of things; in absolute contempt of all economic values and political splendor, and in courageous defence of the rights of independent freedom; then Christianity would be nothing but universal cynicism.

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

If you want to penetrate into the heart of physics, then let yourself be initiated into the mysteries of poetry.