All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.
A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.
God is each truly and exalted thing, therefore the individual himself to the highest degree. But are not nature and the world individuals?
Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.
The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.
Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.
Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?
Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.
In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible.
Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.
Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.
As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.
Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.
The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.
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.
How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator.
There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.
Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.