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

Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.

Religion and morals are symmetrically opposed, just like poetry and philosophy.

There are three kinds of explanation in science: explanations which throw a light upon, or give a hint at a matter; explanations which do not explain anything; and explanations which obscure everything.

Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry.

One of the two is almost always a prevailing tendency of every author: either not to say some things which certainly should be said, or to say many things which did not need to be said. The first is the original sin of synthetic natures, the latter of analytical natures.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.