Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is this public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelIf one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelAn aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelOne 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.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel