Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Literature
Become
Believe
Stops
Believes
Philosopher

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Image
Honor is the mysticism of legality
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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
Image
With respect to ingenious subconsciousness, I think, philosophers might well rival poets.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Image
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