Quote

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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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
Point
Irony
Natural
Appears
Alternation
Individual
Silly
Affectation
Self
Intention
Childish
Instinct
Childlike
Destruction
Continuous
Creation
Naive
Becomes
Classical

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Honor is the mysticism of legality
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.
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As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.
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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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Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.
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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.
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Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.
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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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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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Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.
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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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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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When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.
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Just as the Romans were the only nation that was truly a nation, so our age is the first genuine age.
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The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.
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Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel