Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel's Quotes

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.

Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.

Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.

Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.

The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.

The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.

The main thing is to know something and to say it.

The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?

The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.

There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.

What men are among the other formations of the earth, artists are among men.

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.

Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.

Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.

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.

All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.

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.

Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.

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.

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.

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.

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.

Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.

Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.

Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.

The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly.

The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.

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

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.

A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.

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

Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.

Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.

Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.

He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.

Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.

The historian is a prophet looking backward.

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.

Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.

He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.

Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.

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

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

Better degrees don't automatically translate into better skills and better jobs and better lives.

The test of truth in life is not whether we can remember what we learned in school, but whether we are prepared for change.

We no longer live in a world that is neatly divided between rich and well-educated countries, and poor and badly-educated ones.

Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.

You can spend a lot of money on education, but if you don't spend it wisely, on improving the quality of instruction, you won't get higher student outcomes.