Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes - Page 8

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• The two basic maxims of the so-called historical criticism are the postulate of the common and the axiom of the ordinary. Postulate of the common: everything really great, good, and beautiful, is improbable, since it is extraordinary and therefore at least suspect. Axiom of the ordinary: our conditions and environment must have existed everywhere, for they are really so natural.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Two, History

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

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Philosophy, Epic, Epic Poems

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• The history of imitation of the older literature, particularly abroad, has among other advantages this one, that the important concepts of unintentional parody and passive wit can be deduced from it most easily and comprehensively.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Important, Literature, Imitation

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• Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Men, World, Existence

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• If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Art, Criticism, Would Be

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• Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Criticism, Would Be, Literature

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• Religion is usually nothing but a supplement to or even a substitute for education, and nothing is religious in the strict sense which is not a product of freedom. Thus one can say: The freer, the more religious; and the more education, the less religion.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Education, Religious, Religion

  "Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)". Translated in "Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms" by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, 1968.

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• Good drama must be drastic.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Drama, Theatre, Theater

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• We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things; they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method would be, in this case as well, to prove the possession of the only redeeming faith by good works.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Hands, Would Be, Peculiar

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• Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Spring, Divinity, Spirit

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• Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Art, Poetry

  "Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms" by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, Pennsylvania University Press, 1968.

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• 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.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Character, Criticism, Favorite Subject

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