Doubt breeds doubt.
You even called me stupid in your verse, and I'm almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend.
I look around me and nowhere do I see a stamp of disapproval with which nature marked a woman's candid brow.
No shortcomings of other people cause us to be more intolerant than those which are caricatures of our own.
It's the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.
This searching and doubting and vacillating where nothing is clear but the arrogance of quest. I, too, had such noble ideas when I was still a boy.
Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.
Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.
To test a modest man's modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism.
Ideas are not thoughts; the thought respects the boundaries that the idea ignores thereby failing to realize itself.
The main reason why men and women make different aesthetic judgments is the fact that the latter, generally incapable of abstraction, only admire what meets their complete approval.
The ideas of an age are most abundant where they are not crowded by original ideas.
Mankind is getting smarter every day. Actually, it only seems so. At least we are making progress. We're progressing, to be sure, ever more deeply into the forest.
Progress will always have as its recourse to exaggerate what it cannot surpass.
Before passing different laws for different people, I'd relinquish myself unto you as your slave.
