How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky.
E. T. A. HoffmannThe foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvelous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof.
E. T. A. HoffmannIs it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully?
E. T. A. HoffmannNot a single man on earth knows from his own experience the how and where of his birth, only from tradition, which is often very uncertain.
E. T. A. HoffmannIt is only in the morning that one should marry, read unfavourable reviews, make one's will, beat one's servants, and so forth.
E. T. A. HoffmannWhy should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?
E. T. A. Hoffmann