What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.

Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league.

Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.

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

Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.

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.

An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.