Quotes By Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.

In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible.

Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.

No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

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?

In true prose everything must be underlined.

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.

Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?

Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.

The main thing is to know something and to say it.

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.

Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.

Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.

Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.

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.

What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.

Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.

Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.

Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.

Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.