Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.

Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.

Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry.

There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.

The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.

In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible.

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.