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.

To disrespect the masses is moral; to honor them, lawful.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.

Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit.

The two basic maxims of the so-called historical criticism are the postulate of the common and the axiom of the ordinary. Postulate of the common: everything really great, good, and beautiful, is improbable, since it is extraordinary and therefore at least suspect. Axiom of the ordinary: our conditions and environment must have existed everywhere, for they are really so natural.

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.