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.
We have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world.
A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn't he?
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.
'It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.
We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we made.
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