Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest.

Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself.

Religion is not only a part of education, an element of humanity, but the center of everything else, always the first and the ultimate, the absolutely original.

He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.

The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.

Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.