"The first and last thing required of..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.”

“The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.”

“Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.”

“The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.”

“Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.”

“The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.”

“We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.”

“There is only one search: wandering... no dogma and no heresy.”

“But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.”