“The artist should have as little desire to rule as to serve. He can only create, do nothing but create, and so help the state only by … exalting politicians and economists into artists.”

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Der Künstler darf eben so wenig herrschen als dienen wollen. 15 Er kann nur bilden, nichts als bilden, für den Staat also nur das thun, dass er Herrscher und Diener bilde, dass er Politiker und Oekonomen zu Künstlern erhebe.
“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 54

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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel67

German poet, critic and scholar 1772–1829

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