The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous alternation of self-creation and self-destruction. If it is only instinct, then it is childlike, childish, or silly; if it is only intention, it becomes affectation.

He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.

Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.

Separate religion from morality, and you have the true energy for evil within man, the terrible, cruel, devastating, and inhuman principle which naturally lies in his spirit. Here the division of the indivisible punishes itself most awfully.

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

Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in which inner mankind first acts.