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

Sacrifice of the self is the source of all humiliation, as also on the contrary is the foundation of all true exaltation. The first step will be an inward gaze — an isolating contemplation of ourselves. Whoever stops here has come only halfway. The second step must be an active outward gaze — autonomous, constant observation of the external world.

No one will ever achieve excellence as an artist who cannot depict anything other than his own experiences, his favorite objects, who cannot bring himself to study assiduously even a quite strange object, which does not interest him at all, and to depict it at leisure. An artist must be able and willing to depict everything. This is how a great artistic style is created, which rightly is so much admired in Goethe.

A criminal cannot complain about wrongs done him because one treats him harshly and inhumanely. His offense was an entry into the realm of violence, power and tyranny. There is no restraint and proportion in that realm,
and therefore he should not be surprised at the disproportion of its counter-reaction.

The world must be romanticized. In this way its original meaning will be rediscovered. Romanticization is nothing but a qualitative realization of potential. The lower self is identified, in this operation, with a better self. As we are ourselves are such a qualitative series of empowerings. This operation is as yet quite unknown. Insofar as I give a higher meaning to what is commonplace, and a mysterious appearance to what is ordinary, the dignity of the unknown to what is known, a semblance of infinity to what is finite, I romanticize it.