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In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.

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
Entire
Poet
Presentiment
Poetry
Moderns
Becoming
Ancients
Spirit
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Letters

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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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The following are the universally fundamental laws of literary communication: 1. one must have something to communicate 2. one must have someone to whom to communicate it 3. one must really communicate it, not merely express it for oneself alone. Otherwise it would be more to the point to remain silent.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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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The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Laziness is the one divine fragment of a godlike existence left to man from paradise.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Honor is the mysticism of legality
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The highest good and solely useful is liberal education.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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You wanted to destroy philosophy and poetry in order to make room for religion and morality which you misunderstood: but you wereable to destroy only yourself.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel