Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.

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

Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.

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

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

Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.