Those works whose ideal has not as much living reality and, as it were, personality as the beloved one or a friend had better remain unwritten. They would at least never become works of art.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelLife is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelThe 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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelReligion and morals are symmetrically opposed, just like poetry and philosophy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelThe two basic maxims of the so-called historical criticism are the postulate of the common and the axiom of the ordinary. Postulate of the common: everything really great, good, and beautiful, is improbable, since it is extraordinary and therefore at least suspect. Axiom of the ordinary: our conditions and environment must have existed everywhere, for they are really so natural.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel