I like to write poetry.

I am a poet, and I speak poetically.

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.

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

All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.

Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.

From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.

What men are among the other formations of the earth, artists are among men.

Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.

Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.

Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.

The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.

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

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both.

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.

Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal.

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

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.

Novels tend to end as the Paternoster begins: with the kingdom of God on earth.

How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator.

Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?

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