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One should have wit, but not wish to have it otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.

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
Witticism
Wit
Otherwise
Style
Wish

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.
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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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It is individuality which is the original and eternal within man personality doesn't matter so much. To pursue the education and development of this individuality as one's highest vocation would be a divine egoism.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
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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Virtue is reason which has become energy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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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The life and vigor of poetry consists of the fact that it steps out of itself, tears out a section of religion, then withdraws into itself to assimilate it. The same is true of philosophy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.
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
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If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel