Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.

Just as the Romans were the only nation that was truly a nation, so our age is the first genuine age.

Sense (for a particular art, science, human being, and so forth) is divided spirit; self-restraint is consequently the result of self-creation and self-destruction.

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself.

From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.

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.

Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion.