Mannerism always wants to be finished and doesn't enjoy the process. Genuine, truly great talent, however, finds its greatest satisfaction in the production.

Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

This world could not exist if it were not so simple. The ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.

Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.

What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without.