Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.

Good drama must be drastic.

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest.

An artist is he who has his center within himself. He who lacks this must choose a particular leader and mediator outside of himself, not forever, however, but only at first. For man cannot exist without a living center, and if he does not have it within himself, he may seek it only in a human being. Only a human being and his center can stimulate and awaken that of another.

You wanted to destroy philosophy and poetry in order to make room for religion and morality which you misunderstood: but you wereable to destroy only yourself.

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