Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

One is never deceived; one deceives oneself.

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it

What we do not understand we do not possess.

Do thine own task, and be therewith content.

Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.