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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.

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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Philosopher
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Hanover
Germany
Karl Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich von Schlegel
Friedrich Karl Wilhelm von Schlegel
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Just as a child is really a thing that wants to become a man, so is the poem an object of nature that wants to become an object ofart.
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The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.
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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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Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
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If you want to penetrate into the heart of physics, then let yourself be initiated into the mysteries of poetry.
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The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.
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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.
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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.
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Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.
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To disrespect the masses is moral to honor them, lawful.
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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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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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The life and vigor of poetry consists of the fact that it steps out of itself, tears out a section of religion, then withdraws into itself to assimilate it. The same is true of philosophy.
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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.
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Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
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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.
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Virtue is reason which has become energy.
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
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No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.
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A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel