A poetic idea cannot be expressed allegorically; allegory is the ebb-tide at once of the intellect and of the productive power.
Nature eternally repeats the same thought in ever widening expansion; therefore the drop is an image of the sea.
Poetic and plastic art are alike in being both formative; that is to say, they are intended to bring to view a limited amount of matter in definite relations which are fixed by nature; and when the poet gives expression to an idea, the process is exactly the same as when a painter or sculptor represents the noble or beautiful outlines of a body.
"Throw away so that thou shalt not lose!" is the best rule of life.
There are said to have been people who, when a limb had been amputated, still felt pain in the severed member. Twofold mode of all being: what has been from the beginning and what has only become. Cogito ergo sum; am I not much more under the dominion of the thinking faculty within me than the latter is under my dominion? Individuality is not so much the goal as the way, and not so much the best way as the only one.
Two human beings are always two extremes.
Words are monuments not of what mankind has thought for centuries about certain subjects but only of the fact that it has thought about them. The difference is considerable.
A really great genius can never chance upon an age which would make it impossible for him to allow free play to his superior powers. If he chances upon a dull, exhausted, empty century,—well then, this century is his problem.
Most of my knowledge about myself I have gained in moments when I perceived the peculiarities of other people.
It is a sign of mediocre intelligence to be able to fix one's attention upon details when contemplating a great work of art; on the other hand, it is a sign of the mediocrity of a work of art (poetic or plastic) if one cannot get beyond the details, if they, so to speak, impede the way to the whole.