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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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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
Nothing
Skill
Would
Possess
Skills
Truly
Poetry
Thoroughness
Especially
Ancients
Written
Vigor
Literature
Convincing

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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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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The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.
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One should have wit, but not wish to have it otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.
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In true prose everything must be underlined.
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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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Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in which inner mankind first acts.
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About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.
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Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
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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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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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What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
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With respect to ingenious subconsciousness, I think, philosophers might well rival poets.
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The whole history of modern poetry is a continuous commentary on the short text of philosophy: every art should become science, and every science should become art poetry and philosophy should be united.
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The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a higher caste, not ennobled by birth, however, but through deliberate self-initiation.
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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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All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods.
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Laziness is the one divine fragment of a godlike existence left to man from paradise.
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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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Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.
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An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel