Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.

Philosophy is the true home of irony, which might be defined as logical beauty: for wherever men are philosophizing in spoken or written dialogues, and provided they are not entirely systematic, irony ought to be produced and postulated; even the Stoics regarded urbanity as a virtue.

Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.

That which reminds us of nature and thus stimulates a feeling for the infinite abundance of life is beautiful. Nature is organic,and therefore the highest beauty is forever vegetative; and the same is true for morality and love.

A good preface must be the root and the square of the book at the same time.

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.

Just as a child is really a thing that wants to become a man, so is the poem an object of nature that wants to become an object ofart.