“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.”

“A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.”

“A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center.”

“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.”

“A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.”

“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.”

“All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.”

“An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.”

“An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.”

“Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.”

“As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.”

“Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.”

“Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.”

“Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.”

“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.”

“Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude.”

“Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.”

“Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.”

“Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.”

“Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine.”

“From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.”

“He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.”

“He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.”

“How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator.”

“Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In true prose everything must be underlined.”

“Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.”

“Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.”

“It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.”

“It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.”

“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?”

“Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.”

“Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.”

“Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.”

“Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.”

“Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.”

“Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.”

“Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.”

“Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.”

“No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.”

“Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.”

“Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.”

“Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.”

“Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.”

“One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.”

“One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.”

“Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.”

“Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.”

“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.”

“Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.”

“Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.”

“Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.”

“Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.”

“The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly.”

“The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.”

“The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.”

“The historian is a prophet looking backward.”

“The main thing is to know something and to say it.”

“The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?”

“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.”

“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.”

“There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.”

“Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.”

“Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.”

“What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.”

“What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.”

“What men are among the other formations of the earth, artists are among men.”

“When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.”

“Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.”

“Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.”

“Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.”

“Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.”

“Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.”

“Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.”

“Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. The feminine ones are not idealistic, and the idealistic not feminine.”

“Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.”