Transcendence: that which transcends experience.

I would love to be able to write a tragedy in my imagination--it would turn into a masterpiece.

The manifestation of poetry in external life is formal perfection. True sentiment grows within, and art must represent internal phenomena externally.

Critics are reprimanded when they get sarcastic. How absurd! Is the torch of criticism supposed to shine without burning?

Is it true that one travels in order to know mankind? It is easier to get to know other people at home, but abroad one gets to know oneself.

They are miserly, the princes of Austria, you need not grieve about it; they may not donate anything, but they allow themselves tobe fleeced, the good lords.

The German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.