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Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.

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
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Literary Theorist
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Hanover
Germany
Karl Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich von Schlegel
Friedrich Karl Wilhelm von Schlegel
Men
Leibniz
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Existences
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Pretender
Entitled
Worlds
Equally
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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
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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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There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn't know what his contemporaries are.
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Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.
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From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.
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Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.
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Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy.
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The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.
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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.
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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.
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Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.
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In many a poetic work, one gets here and there, instead of representation merely a title indicating that this or that was supposedto be represented here, that the artist has been prevented from doing it and most humbly asks to be kindly excused.
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
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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.
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If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry.
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We do not see God, but everywhere we see something divine first and most typically in the center of a reasonable man, in the depth of a living human product. You can directly feel and think nature, the universe, but not the Godhead. Only the man among men can poetize and think divinely and live with religion.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel