Top 88 Quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.

It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.

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.

A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.

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

Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

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

In true prose everything must be underlined.

All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.

Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude.