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 Copy Share Image
We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things; they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Both in their origins and effects, boredom and stuffy air resemble each other. They are usually generated whenever a large number of people gather… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
In every good poem everything must be both deliberate and instinctive. That is how the poem becomes ideal. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Only he who possesses a personal religion, an original view of infinity, can be an artist. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
One mentions many artists who are actually art works of nature. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
