From a distance the rushing of the torrent delights and uplifts us, but it rocks us in a flimsy boat, we are overwhelmed by despair. The same applies to danger.

Do you think that it is possible to have a mere taste of commonness? Either one hates it or makes common cause with it.

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

How frightening it is to have reached the height of human accomplishment in art that must forever borrow from life's abundance.

Two soldiers and a villain are enough to blow up the rights of the citizens.

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

Mozart starved, but you allow Thalberg and Liszt make tons of gold: Of course, you may think that someone immortal cannot die of hunger