He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

An 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 Schlegel

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel