Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master’s master, the genius of the age. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Like Leibniz’s possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
