Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.”

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

“He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.”

“Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet especially not against their poetry.”

“Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.”

“Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?”

“Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.”

“Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.”

“Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.”

“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.”

“All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.”

“Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.”

“What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.”

“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.”

“Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.”