Translators are like busy match-makers; they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.
My relations with Schiller rested on the decided tendency of both of us toward a single aim, and our common activity rested on the diversity of the means by which we endeavored to attain that aim.
The best that history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.
We really learn only from those books which we cannot criticise. The author of a book which we could criticise would have to learn from us.
That is the reason why the Bible will never lose its power; because, as long as the world lasts, no one can stand up and say: I grasp it as a whole and understand all the parts of it. But we say humbly: as a whole it is worthy of respect, and in all its parts it is applicable.
There is and will be much discussions as to the use and harm of circulating the Bible. One thing is clear to me mischief will result, as heretofore, by using it fantastically as a system of dogma; benefit, as heretofore, by a loving acceptance of its teachings.
I am convinced that the Bible will always be more beautiful the more it is understood; the more, that is, we see and observe that every word which we take in a general sense and apply specially to ourselves, had, under certain circumstances of time and place, a peculiar, special and directly individual reference.
If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them altogether, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.
Shakespeare's Henry IV. If everything were lost that has ever been preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric could be completely restored out of this one play.
Shakespeare's finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they are something more than they should be, and for that very reason indicate the great poet.