Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.

Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.

All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is this public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.

No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.

Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.