We have been corrupted by novels. For through them the sa...

We have been corrupted by novels. For through them the sacred has ceased to be sacred, while the purest, most human, most innocent happiness is degraded to a daydream.

For art, as you well see, there has never been a favourable time; it has always been said that she must go a-begging; but now she will die of hunger. Whence might come that unaffectedness of spirit that is so necessary for its enjoyment, in times like these when, as Pfuel says, sorrow deals everyone such blows?

We yearn to do what is good and beautiful, but no one has need of us, everything happens without our assistance.

Their criss-crossing chatter can hardly be called conversation.

The more I see of Berlin, the more certain that this city, like all the cities and capitals of the world, is no proper abode for love. People here are too affected to be true, to clever to be open.

[... he is obsessed by one thought, namely that] 'your only, your highest goal has sunk from sight'.

... one should read at least one good poem daily, see one beautiful painting, hear one sweet melody, or exchange heart to heart words with a friend, and thus educate the more beautiful, I might say the more human, side of our nature as well.

Heinrich von Kleist, from various letters