Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.

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.

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.

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.

The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.