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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.

— Friedrich Schlegel Athenäum (1798)

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More quotes by Friedrich Schlegel

Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.

Expect nothing more from philosophy than a voice, language and grammar of the instinct for Godliness that lies at its origin, and, essentially, is philosophy itself.

To live classically and to realize antiquity practically within oneself is the summit and goal of philology.

There are people with whom everything they consider a means turns mysteriously into an end.

Morality has always had a difficult time of it; utility and legality even begrudge the fact of its existence.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Schlegel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.