Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

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

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

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.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

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

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.

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.

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

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.