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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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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
Education
Educated
Philosophically
Free
Degree
Critically
Form
Instruments
Historically
Able
Ancient
Genuinely
Men
Musical
Convenience
Time
Degrees
Tune
Rhetorically
Absolutely
Tunes
Poetically
Modern
Instrument
Arbitrarily

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All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.
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The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.
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Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.
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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
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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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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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A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.
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Virtue is reason which has become energy.
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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.
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Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
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We do not see God, but everywhere we see something divine first and most typically in the center of a reasonable man, in the depth of a living human product. You can directly feel and think nature, the universe, but not the Godhead. Only the man among men can poetize and think divinely and live with religion.
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The whole history of modern poetry is a continuous commentary on the short text of philosophy: every art should become science, and every science should become art poetry and philosophy should be united.
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One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.
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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.
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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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God the father, and even more often the devil himself, appears at times in the place of fate in the modern tragedy. Why is it thatthis has not induced any scholar to develop a theory of the diabolical genre?
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Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league.
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Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.
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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.
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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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel