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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.

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
First
Present
Acts
Life
Future
Inner
Individual
Artists
Artist
Entire
Organ
Spirit
Meet
Unite
Past
Mankind
Organs
Soul
Higher
Spirits
Firsts
Becomes
External

More quotes by 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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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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A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.
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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If you want to penetrate into the heart of physics, then let yourself be initiated into the mysteries of poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.
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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Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
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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To disrespect the masses is moral to honor them, lawful.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like Goodness alive! would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous alternation of self-creation and self-destruction. If it is only instinct, then it is childlike, childish, or silly if it is only intention, it becomes affectation.
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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Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Art and works of art do not make an artist sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.
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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Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel