A really great genius can never chance upon an age which would make it impossible for him to allow free play to his superior powers.  If he chances upon a dull, exhausted, empty century,—­well then, this century is his problem.

Most of my knowledge about myself I have gained in moments when I perceived the peculiarities of other people.

It is a sign of mediocre intelligence to be able to fix one’s attention upon details when contemplating a great work of art; on the other hand, it is a sign of the mediocrity of a work of art (poetic or plastic) if one cannot get beyond the details, if they, so to speak, impede the way to the whole.

Goethe says in regard to Michael Kohlhaas that one should not single out such cases in the general course of human events.  That is true in so far as one should not draw any conclusions therefrom to the detriment of mankind.  But it seems to me that it is precisely to exceptions of this sort that the poet must turn his attention, in order to show that they, as well as common-place events, have their origin in what is most genuinely human.

Man cannot abstract his ego from the universe.  As firmly as he is interwoven with the universe and life, just so firmly does he believe that life and the universe are interwoven with him.

(1837)

It takes a great deal of time merely to perceive where the enigmatical in many things is actually located.  Many simply introduce logic into their poetry and believe this is equivalent to motivation.

All reasoning (and here belongs what Schiller, under the trade mark of the sentimental, would smuggle in as poetry) is onesided and allows the heart and mind no further activity than simply to deny or affirm.  On the contrary, all that is actual and objective (and here belong the so-called natural sounds, which reveal the innermost essence of a state or a human personality) is infinite, and offers to those who are in sympathy and to those who are not the widest scope for the employment of all their powers.

Philosophy strives ever and always for the absolute, and yet that is properly speaking the task of poetry.

With every human being (let him be who he will) disappears from the world a mystery, that, owing to his peculiar construction, he alone could reveal, and that no one will reveal after him.

It is dangerous to think in images, but it cannot always be avoided; for often, especially in regard to the highest things, image and thought are identical.

A miracle is easier to repeat than to explain.  Thus the artist continues the act of creation in the highest sense, without being able to comprehend it.

(1838)

God Himself when, in order to attain great ends, He exerts a direct influence upon an individual, and thus allows Himself an arbitrary interference (if we put the case we must use expressions that fit it) in the world’s machinery, cannot protect His tool from being crushed by the same wheel which this individual has arrested for a moment or has turned in another direction.  This is surely the principal tragic motif which underlies the history of the Maid of Orleans.  A tragedy which should reflect this idea would produce a great impression through the glimpse it would afford into the eternal order of nature, which God Himself may not disturb with impunity.