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Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Age: 57 †
Born: 1772
Born: January 1
Died: 1829
Died: January 11
Art Theorist
Editor
Historian
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Hanover
Germany
Karl Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich von Schlegel
Friedrich Karl Wilhelm von Schlegel
Imagination
Hence
Literature
Divinity
Character
Flash
External
Wit
Witty
Appearance
Similarity
Fantasy
Mysticism

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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If you want to penetrate into the heart of physics, then let yourself be initiated into the mysteries of poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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
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To disrespect the masses is moral to honor them, lawful.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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
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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
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Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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
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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
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When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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True love should be, according to its origin, entirely arbitrary and entirely accidental at the same time it should seem both necessary and free in keeping with its nature, however, it should be both destiny and virtue and appear as a mystery and a miracle.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method would be, in this case as well, to prove the possession of the only redeeming faith by good works.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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I have expressed some ideas that point to the center I have saluted the dawn in my way, from my point of view. He who knows the way should do the same, in his way, and from his point of view.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel