Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above.

Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.

The real genres: good and bad.

Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.

It's actually the spirit helping the spirit; it is the doctor, the bed, the potion.

Pity, but never love bestows kind words upon the slave.

It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty.