The life and vigor of poetry consists of the fact that it steps out of itself, tears out a section of religion, then withdraws into itself to assimilate it. The same is true of philosophy.

In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.

We do not see God, but everywhere we see something divine; first and most typically in the center of a reasonable man, in the depth of a living human product. You can directly feel and think nature, the universe, but not the Godhead. Only the man among men can poetize and think divinely and live with religion.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem.

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.