Whoever has not arrived at the clear insight that there might be greatness entirely outside his own sphere for which he has no understanding, whoever does not have at least a dim inkling in which area of the human spirit this greatness might be situated: he is within his own sphere either without genius, or he has not educated himself… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
The analytical writer observes the reader as he is; accordingly, he makes his calculation, sets his machine to make the appropriate effect on him. The synthetic writer constructs and creates his own reader; he does not imagine him as resting and dead, but lively and advancing toward him. He makes that which he had invented gradually take shape before the… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share
The French Revolution, Fichte's Theory of Knowledge, and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister are the three greatest tendencies of the age. Whoever takes offence… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
An artist is he who has his center within himself. He who lacks this must choose a particular leader and mediator outside… — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Copy Share Image
The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense,… — 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 art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a… — 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 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
