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Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

1772–1829 Germany

Germany
Novelists
Philosophers
Playwrights
Poets

Also known as: Friedrich von Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Schlegel

Random Friedrich Schlegel quote

77 quotes

Whether directly or indirectly all nations are originally nothing but Indian colonies... the oriental antiquity could, if we consented to deepen it, bring us back more safely towards the divine....

Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.

Athenäum (1798)

What am I proud of, and what can I be proud of as an artist? Of the decision that separated and isolated me forever from everything ordinary.

There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit. India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison.

source: Arise, O India, François Gautier. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013)

In a perfect literature all books should be only a single book, and in such an eternally developing book, the gospel of humanity and culture will be revealed.

The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a higher caste, not ennobled by birth, however, but through deliberate self-initiation.

It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed knowledge of God. All their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their God.

A mediator is one who perceives the divinity within himself and who self-destructively sacrifices himself in order to reveal, communicate, and represent to all mankind this divinity in his conduct and actions, in his words and works.

You wanted to destroy philosophy and poetry in order to make room for religion and morality

The relation of the true artist and the true human being to his ideals is absolutely religious. The man for whom this inner divine service is the end and occupation of all his life is a priest, and this is how everyone can and should become a priest.

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?”

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.

In India lay the real source of all tongues, of all thoughts and utterances of the human mind. Everything - yes, everything without exception - has it origin in India." and "The primary source of all intellectual development - in a word the whole human culture - is unquestionably to be found in the tradItions of the East.

Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason, as it is set forth by Greek philosophers, appears, in comparison with the abundant light and vigour of Oriental idealism, like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun—faltering and feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished.

One presupposition, which in this matter has been of great harm and continues to do harm, is the separation between oriental and Greek studies and [the Greek and oriental} mind; [this] is increasingly concocted and arbitrarily applied, as if this grand difference had foundations in reality. In the history of humankind the inhabitants of Asia and the Europeans are to be seen as members of one family, whose history ought never to be divided, if one wants to understand the whole.

There are people whose whole life consists in always saying no. It would be no small accomplishment to be able to say no properly, but whoever can do no more, surely cannot do so properly. The taste of these nay-sayers is like an efficient pair of scissors for pruning the extremities of genius; their enlightenment is like a great candle-snuffer for the flame of enthusiasm and their reason a mild laxative against immoderate pleasure and love.

The Indians possessed a knowledge of the true God, conceived and expressed in noble, clear and grand language … Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealization of reason, as set forth by the Greeks, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of oriental idealism, like a feeble spark in the full flood of the noonday sun.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Schlegel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.