Top 88 Quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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.

From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.

The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.

An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.

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.

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.

The historian is a prophet looking backward.

Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.

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.