Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

At the words “his philosophy, my philosophy,” one is always reminded of that line in Nathan: … “What kind of God is it who belongs to a man?”

Bei den Ausdrücken, „Seine Philosophie”, „Meine Philosophie”, erinnert man sich immer an die Worte im Nathan: „Wem eignet Gott? Was ist das für ein Gott, der einem Menschen eignet?”

Whoever hasn’t yet arrived at the clear realization that there might be a greatness existing entirely outside his own sphere and for which he might have absolutely no feeling; whoever hasn’t at least felt obscure intimations concerning the approximate location of this greatness in the geography of the human spirit: that person either has no genius in his own sphere, or else he hasn’t been educated to the level of the classic.

Novels are the Socratic dialogs of our time. This free form has become the refuge of common sense in its flight from pedantry.

Die Romane sind die sokratischen Dialoge unserer Zeit. In diese liberale Form hat sich die Lebensweisheit vor der Schulweisheit geflüchtet.

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.

In England … everything becomes professional … even the rogues of that island are pedants.

In the same way as philosophy loses sight of its true object and appropriate matter, when either it passes into and merges in theology, or meddles with external politics, so also does it mar its proper form when it attempts to mimic the rigorous method of mathematics.

Variant translations, of the paradoxical statement which begins in German with Es ist gleich tödlich für den Geist, ein System zu haben, und keins zu haben.:

It is equally fatal for the spirit to have a system and to have none. One must thus decide to join the two.

Honour is the mysticism of legality.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.

The romantic poetry is a progressive universal poetry.

Die romantische Poesie ist eine progressive Universalpoesie.