An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Interpretation
An aphorism should be self-contained and distinct, much like a work of art.
This quote by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel suggests that an aphorism should stand alone, free from the influences of its context, akin to a small piece of art that conveys its message completely on its own. The comparison to a hedgehog implies that just as a hedgehog is self-sufficient and unique, an aphorism should encapsulate its truth without needing external elaboration or support.
In practice
During a philosophy lecture, a professor might use this quote to emphasize the importance of self-contained ideas.
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.
This uneasiness comes over me from time to time, and I feel as if I've somehow been pieced together from two different puzzles.
Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.
I had been told I was on the road to hell, but I had no idea it was just a mile down the road with a dome on it.
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities.
There's a basic philosophy here that by empowering...workers you'll make their jobs far more interesting, and they'll be able to work at a higher level than they would have without all that information just a few clicks away.
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