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.

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

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.

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

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

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

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

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.

The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.

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

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

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

In true prose everything must be underlined.

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

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

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.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

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

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

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

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

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

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