Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.
Interpretation
Wit reflects a deeper creativity and insight, resembling mystical inspiration.
In this quote, Schlegel suggests that wit is not merely a clever or quick response, but rather a manifestation of deeper imaginative thought. It connects the essence of humor with a spiritual or mystical insight, emphasizing that true wit resembles the profound understanding found in mysticism.
In practice
During a speech about creativity, one might say this quote to illustrate the deeper roots of humor.
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.
A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.
If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry.
He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.
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.
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.
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world.
Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme...If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; it must be displayed publicly.
Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
Suffering is a byproduct of evolution by natural selection, an inevitable consequence that may worry us in our more sympathetic moments but cannot be expected to worry a tiger - even if a tiger can be said to worry about anything at all - and certainly cannot be expected to worry its genes.
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
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