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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
In every good poem everything must be both deliberate and instinctive. That is how the poem becomes ideal. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
Only he who possesses a personal religion, an original view of infinity, can be an artist. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
