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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

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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
Critics
Dogmatic
Criticism
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Critic
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Anyway
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More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In this great personality of mankind, God became man.
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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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Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.
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Honor is the mysticism of legality
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Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.
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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.
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Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The history of imitation of the older literature, particularly abroad, has among other advantages this one, that the important concepts of unintentional parody and passive wit can be deduced from it most easily and comprehensively.
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
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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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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
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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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
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Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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I can no longer say my love and your love they are both alike in their perfect mutuality.
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
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We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method would be, in this case as well, to prove the possession of the only redeeming faith by good works.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel