Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

The historian is a prophet looking backward.

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

Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.

What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.

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

Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.