An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry? – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
What men are among the other formations of the earth, artists are among men. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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
Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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
Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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