Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.
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Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
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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.
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Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.
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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.
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Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.
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Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.
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Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.
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The historian is a prophet looking backward.
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A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.
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Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.
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Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.
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The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.
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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.
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In true prose everything must be underlined.
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An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
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Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.
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What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
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Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.
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Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.
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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
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Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.
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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.
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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.
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Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.
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It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
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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.
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Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.
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Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.
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