Man has his being in truth–if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying–but of acting against one’s conviction.

Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.

Ich weiß nicht, aber mich dünkt, ich sähe zwei Wege um zur Wissenschaft der menschlichen Geschichte zu gelangen. Der eine, mühsam und unabsehlich, mit unzähligen Krümmungen, der Weg der Erfahrung; der andere, fast ein Sprung...

Novels arise out of the shortcomings of history.

Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking–being awake–consciousness.

That which the external world perceives as quite motionless has the appearance of being quite at rest. However much it may change, in relation to the external world it always stays at rest. This principle...

Many books are longer than they seem. They have indeed no end. The boredom that they cause is truly absolute and infinite.

Humanity is a comic role.

Novels arise out of the shortcoings of history.

The artist stands on the human being as a statue does on a pedestal.

Almost all genius up to now was one-sided—the result of a sickly constitution. One type had too much sense of the external, the other too much inner sense. Seldom could nature achieve a balance between...

Humanity is the higher meaning of our planet, the nerve that connects this part of it with the upper world, the eye it raises to heaven.

The more narrow-minded a system is the more it will please worldly-wise people. Thus the system of the materialists, the doctrine of Helvetius and also Locke has recieved the most acclaim amongst his class. Thus...

How can a person have a sense of something if he does not have the germ of it within himself. What I am to understand must develop organically within me–and what I seem to learn...

Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.

Ohne die Träume würden wir gewiss früher alt.

Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates–hence the deadly frost–the free power of the mind–the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for...

The true reader must be an extension of the author. He is the higher court that receives the case already prepared by the lower court. The feeling by means of which the author has separated...

One can not understand language because language cannot understand itself; does not want to understand

Genius in general is poetic. Where genius has been active it has been poetically active. The truly moral person is a poet.

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.