Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion.

The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense, is freedom. Consciousness is far from intention. There is a certain enamoured contemplation of one's own naturalness or silliness which itself is unspeakably silly. Intention does not necessarily require a profound calculation or plan.

God is each truly and exalted thing, therefore the individual himself to the highest degree. But are not nature and the world individuals?

The main thing is to know something and to say it.

When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.

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