Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich Schlegel
doe familiar knows
He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.
ridiculous purity genre
All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.
philosophy mean use
Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.
reason polemics shock
When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.
education men expression
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.
writing names boredom
German writings attain popularity through a great name, or through personalities, or through good connections, or through effort,or through moderate immorality, or through accomplished incomprehensibility, or through harmonious platitude, or through versatile boredom, or through constant striving after the absolute.
two firsts needs
One of the two is almost always a prevailing tendency of every author: either not to say some things which certainly should be said, or to say many things which did not need to be said. The first is the original sin of synthetic natures, the latter of analytical natures.
criticism would-be literature
Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest.
art criticism would-be
If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.
ideas criticism able
When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.
eye doe machines
The analytical writer observes the reader as he is; accordingly, he makes his calculation, sets his machine to make the appropriate effect on him. The synthetic writer constructs and creates his own reader; he does not imagine him as resting and dead, but lively and advancing toward him. He makes that which he had invented gradually take shape before the reader's eyes, or he tempts him to do the inventing for himself. He does not want to make a particular effect on him, but rather enters into a solemn relationship of innermost symphilosophy or sympoetry.
humanity needs characteristics
The need to raise itself above humanity is humanity's main characteristic.
communication law would-be
The following are the universally fundamental laws of literary communication: 1. one must have something to communicate; 2. one must have someone to whom to communicate it; 3. one must really communicate it, not merely express it for oneself alone. Otherwise it would be more to the point to remain silent.
science light giving
There are three kinds of explanation in science: explanations which throw a light upon, or give a hint at a matter; explanations which do not explain anything; and explanations which obscure everything.