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.
All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers.
All history is nothing but a continuous transformation of human nature.
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
To be ruthless requires belief that our life on earth is but a brief prelude to an afterlife, or a temporary sacrifice before some utopia can be instituted._x000D_ _x000D_ Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth.
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