Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.

Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature.

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

There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material.

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

Those works whose ideal has not as much living reality and, as it were, personality as the beloved one or a friend had better remain unwritten. They would at least never become works of art.

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.