What raises great poetry above all else--it is the entire person and also the entire world.

You even called me stupid in your verse, and I'm almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend.

Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful toneis silenced.

As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.

If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.

I am a woman, and even if I could proceed with harshness and rigidity, it would disgust me nonetheless.

Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.