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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.

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
Human
Devote
Humans
Gods
Nothing
Artists
Self
Oneself
Sacrifice
Beings
Artist
Subterranean
Become
Sacrificing

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The meanest authors have at least this similarity with the great author of heaven and earth, that they usually say after a completed day of work: And behold, what he had done was good.
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Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
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Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.
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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
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Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest.
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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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Virtue is reason which has become energy.
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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.
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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.
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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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Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.
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The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.
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Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
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Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.
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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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A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form.
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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 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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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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