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There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn't know what his contemporaries are.

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
Historical
Except
Knowledge
Doesn
Self
Contemporaries

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
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Honor is the mysticism of legality
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.
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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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A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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A classification is a definition comprising a system of definitions.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.
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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Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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.
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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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
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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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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No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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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?
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel