Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.

Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.

If the essence of cynicism consists in preferring nature to art, virtue to beauty and science; in not bothering about the letter of things -- to which the Stoic strictly adheres -- but in looking up to the spirit of things; in absolute contempt of all economic values and political splendor, and in courageous defence of the rights of independent freedom; then Christianity would be nothing but universal cynicism.

An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.

It is a thoughtless and immodest presumption to learn anything about art from philosophy. Some do begin as if they hoped to learnsomething new here, since philosophy cannot and should not do anything further than develop the given art experiences and the existing art concepts into a science, improve the views of art, and promote them with the help of a thoroughly scholarly art history, and produce that logical mood about these subjects too which unites absolute liberalism with absolute rigor.