The sea appears all golden. Beneath the sun-lit sky.

The devil take these people and their language! They take a dozen monosyllabic words in their jaws, chew them, crunch them and spit them out again, and call that speaking. Fortunately they are by nature fairly silent, and although they gaze at us open-mouthed, they spare us long conversations.

I consider it a degradation and a stain on my honor to submit to baptism in order to qualify myself for state employment in Prussia.

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you. Oh, what lies there are in kisses!

Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.

I am no longer a divine biped. I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Weimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man.

If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.