199 Quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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.

The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.

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 highest good and solely useful is liberal education.

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

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

A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form.

The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In this great personality of mankind, God became man.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.