must turn his attention, in order to show that they,
as well as common-place events, have their origin in what is most
genuinely human.

Man cannot abstract his ego from the universe. As firmly as he is
interwoven with the universe and life, just so firmly does he believe
that life and the universe are interwoven with him.

(1837)

It takes a great deal of time merely to perceive where the enigmatical
in many things is actually located. Many simply introduce logic into
their poetry and believe this is equivalent to motivation.

All reasoning (and here belongs what Schiller, under the trade mark of
the sentimental, would smuggle in as poetry) is onesided and allows the
heart and mind no further activity than simply to deny or affirm. On the
contrary, all that is actual and objective (and here belong the
so-called natural sounds, which reveal the innermost essence of a state
or a human personality) is infinite, and offers to those who are in
sympathy and to those who are not the widest scope for the employment of
all their powers.

Philosophy strives ever and always for the absolute, and yet that is
properly speaking the task of poetry.

With every human being (let him be who he will) disappears from the
world a mystery, that, owing to his peculiar construction, he alone
could reveal, and that no one will reveal after him.

It is dangerous to think in images, but it cannot always be avoided; for
often, especially in regard to the highest things, image and thought are
identical.

A miracle is easier to repeat than to explain. Thus the artist continues
the act of creation in the highest sense, without being able to
comprehend it.

(1838)

God Himself when, in order to attain great ends, He exerts a direct
influence upon an individual, and thus allows Himself an arbitrary
interference (if we put the case we must use expressions that fit it) in
the world's machinery, cannot protect His tool from being crushed by the
same wheel which this individual has arrested for a moment or has turned
in another direction. This is surely the principal tragic motif which
underlies the history of the Maid of Orleans. A tragedy which should
reflect this idea would produce a great impression through the glimpse
it would afford into the eternal order of nature, which God Himself may
not disturb with impunity.

When the poet attempts to delineate characters by making them speak, he
must be careful not to allow them to speak about