199 Quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Just as the Romans were the only nation that was truly a nation, so our age is the first genuine age.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

That which reminds us of nature and thus stimulates a feeling for the infinite abundance of life is beautiful. Nature is organic,and therefore the highest beauty is forever vegetative; and the same is true for morality and love.

Nothing is more piquant than when a man of genius possesses mannerisms; not so when they possess him -- this leads to spiritual petrification.

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

Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

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

Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league.