199 Quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.

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

Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.

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

In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles.

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

One should have wit, but not wish to have it; otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.

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

No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.