True love should be, according to its origin, entirely arbitrary and entirely accidental at the same time; it should seem both necessary and free; in keeping with its nature, however, it should be both destiny and virtue and appear as a mystery and a miracle.

In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible.

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.

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

Imagination must first be filled to the point of saturation with life of every kind before the moment arrives when the friction of free sociability electrifies it to such an extent that the most gentle stimulus of friendly or hostile contact elicits from it lightning sparks, luminous flashes, or shattering blows.

In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it; the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern.

Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.