A wise man can and should stand above his times, not so the poet, but he should be their apex.

Profundity easily turns into dullness and astuteness deteriorates into wit. Be guided by natural common sense and it will accommodate great and small.

No one will stop to help you when you are in need, but everyone forces opinions upon you that you do not require.

Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original.

The way in which modern German poetry follows theories reminds me of pupils who, scolded by their teacher for their insubordination, justify themselves by saying that they invented new rules of propriety according to which they are quite well- behaved.

Plato calls complacency the companion of loneliness.

The real genres: good and bad.