Literary Birthday – 10 March – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was born on 10 March 1772 and died on 12 January 1829.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

1. An artist is he for whom the goal and centre of life is to form his mind.
2. Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.
3. Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
4. What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
5. The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.
6. The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.
7. Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.
8. Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
9. It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.
10. Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.
11. Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.
12. Only a man who is at one with the world can be at one with himself.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was a German poet, literary critic, philosopher, philologist, and Indologist. He was supposed to study law but instead focussed on classical literature. He began a career as a writer and lecturer, and founded journals such as Athenaeum, ‘contributing fragments, aphorisms, and essays in which the principles of the Romantic school are most definitely stated. They are now generally recognized as the deepest and most significant expressions of the subjective idealism of the early Romanticists.’ (source)

Source for Image: Franz Gareis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franz_Gareis_Portrait_Friedrich_Schlegel.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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