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Take playfulness seriously, and you will apprehend what is at the center and rediscover your revered art in a more sublime light.

— Friedrich Schlegel

Deute den lieblichen Schein und mache Ernst aus dem Spiel, so wirst du das Centrum fassen und die verehrte Kunst in höherm Lichte wieder finden.

Original text (German)

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Notes from Wikiquote

“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 109

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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Attribution

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.