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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes
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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel , usually cited as Friedrich Schlegel, was a German poet, literary critic, philosopher, philologist and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of the Jena romantics. He was a zealous promoter of the Romantic movement and inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Adam Mickiewicz and Kazimierz Brodziński. The first to notice what became known as Grimm's law, Schlegel was a pioneer in Indo-European studies, comparative linguistics, and morphological typology.

As a young man he was an atheist, a radical, and an individualist. In 1808, the same Schlegel converted to Catholicism. Two years later he was a diplomat and journalist in the service of the reactionary Clemens von Metternich, surrounded by monks and pious men of society.

✵ 10. March 1772 – 12. January 1829  •  Other names Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel: 67 quotes7 likes

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

“The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was indigenous to India and was brought into Greece by Pythagoras.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

“India is pre-eminently distinguished for the many traits of original grandeur of thought and of the wonderful remains of immediate knowledge.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

“India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

“In India lay the real source of all tongues, of all thoughts and utterances of the human mind. Everything - yes, everything without exception - has it origin in India."”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

and "The primary source of all intellectual development - in a word the whole human culture - is unquestionably to be found in the tradItions of the East.

quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

“All those countless battles—those endless, and... for the greater part, useless wars, of which... fills up for so many thousand years... are but little atoms compared with the great whole of human destiny.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The Philosophy of History (1852), Lecture I.

“This perception—this comprehension—this right discernment of the great events and general results of universal history, is what might be termed a science of history; and I would have here preferred that term, were it not liable to much misconception, and might have been understood as referring more to special and learned inquiries, than the other name I have adopted...”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The Philosophy of History (1852), Lecture I.

“The most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God; so far as this relates to science.
Should this restoration in the internal consciousness be fully understood, and really brought about, the object of pure philosophy is attained.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The Philosophy of History (1852), Author's Preface

“Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Athenäum (1798 - 1800)
Source: “Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #31