My self ... is a dramatic ensemble. Here a prophetic ancestor makes his appearance. Here a brutal hero shouts. Here an alcoholic b...on vivant argues with a learned professor. Here a lyric muse, chronically love-struck, raises her eyes to heaven. Her papa steps forward, uttering pedantic protests. Here the indulgent uncle intercedes. Here the aunt babbles gossip. Here the maid giggles lasciviously. And I look upon it all with amazement, the sharpened pen in my left hand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Standing at his appointed place, at the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from th...e depths. He neither serves nor rules--he transmits. His position is humble. And the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here a brain is consumed by the fire of a star. It frees itself in its work just before the catastrophe. Deepest tragedy takes pla...ce here, real tragedy, natural tragedy, exemplary tragedy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, ...hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One does not lash what lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the ...work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. I...n this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »