[Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde and the Fragments, Schlegel, Firchow, 1971]
p.3 When Lucinde was first published, most of its public realized that it was an unusual novel, but only
in the sense that it was unusually bad.
p.30 wit is rather - as it was for most of the eighteenth century - the capacity to discover similarities
and to form ideas: wit in the sense of intelligence rather than of simple humor.
p.37-38 It is through the imagination that man... can see himself finally achieve the fullest awareness
of his being... In the end, it is the imagination which perceives, unifies, creates, and... reveals.
p.52 But, of course, intelligence, wit, and originality are as rare among children as they are among adults.
p.119 Only in the search itself does the human mind find the secret that it seeks.
p.128 To have intentions, to act according to intentions, to weave one intention artificially into another
intention so as to arrive at another... is rooted so deeply in godlike man's idiotic nature
p.146-147 In order to write well about something, one shouldn't be interested in it any longer.
To express an idea with due circumspection, one must have relegated it wholly to one's past; one must no longer be preoccupied
with it.
p.151 People who write books and imagine that their readers are the public and that they must educate it
soon arrive at the point not only of despising their so-called public but of hating it. Which leads absolutely nowhere. [JLJ
- Keep in mind that Schlegel has written this book to educate you, a reader and member of the public. Think for a minute -
if this statement, which he has written, is true, what is his opinion of you?]
p.167 Intention doesn't exactly require any deep calculation or plan. [JLJ - a great
idea for game theory. An intention is a first step in operationalizing a plan, and represents a maneuver in space and time.]
p.170 Usually incomprehension doesn't derive from a lack of intelligence, but from a lack of sense.
p.170 Folly is to be distinguished from madness only in the sense that the former, like stupidity, is conscious.
p.170 The historian is a prophet facing backwards.
p.170 There are three kinds of explanations in science: explanations that give us an illumination or an
inkling of something; explanations that explain nothing; and explanations that obscure everything.
p.172 There are people whose whole life consists in always saying no. It would be no small accomplishment
always to be able to say no properly, but whoever can do no more, surely cannot do so properly. The taste of these nay-sayers
is like an efficient pair of scissors for pruning the extremities of genius; their enlightenment is like a great candle-snuffer
for the flame of enthusiasm; and their reason a mild laxative against immoderate pleasure and love. [JLJ - I see that Schlegel
has experience with the group of people who review papers for publication in academic Journals.]
p.197 Imagination consists of both enthusiasm and invention; pathos, of soul and passion; and mimicry, of
penetration and expression.
p.216 there is, despite all the senses, no external world without imagination
p.242 the imagination is man's faculty for perceiving divinity.
p.253 You're not really supposed to understand me, but I want very much for you to listen to me. [JLJ -
That holds true for a University lecture, but this is a book, however...]
[Philosophical Fragments, Schlegel, Firchow, 1971, 1991]
xxv the free play between imagination and reason is shown to animate these respective faculties to such
an extent that it can be said to represent the minimal condition under which something like a practical judgment can occur.
