Maxims and Reflections
detailed contemplation of their own decay; dead men who remain in the
world for the ruin of others, and feed their death on the living,--to
this have come our makers of literature.
When the same thing happened in antiquity, it was only as a strange
token of some rare disease; but with the moderns the disease has become
endemic and epidemic.
466
Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.
467
What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves!
468
The things that are true, good, excellent, are simple and always alike,
whatever their appearance may be. But the error that we blame is
extremely manifold and varying; it is in conflict not only with the good
and the true, but also with itself; it is self-contradictory. Thus it is
that the words of blame in our literature must necessarily outnumber the
words of praise.
469
The Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was of a simple and positive
character, express approval more often than disapproval. With the Latin
writers it is the contrary; and the more poetry and the arts of speech
decay, the more will blame swell and praise shrink.
470
'What are tragedies but the versified passions of people who make Heaven
knows what out of the external world?'
471
There are certain empirical enthusiasts who are quite right in showing
their enthusiasm over new productions that are good; but they are as
ecstatic as if there were no other good work in the world at all.
472
In _Sakontala_ the poet appears in his highest function. As the
representative of the most natural condition of things, the finest mode
of life, the purest moral endeavour, the worthiest majesty, and the most
solemn worship, he ventures on common and ridiculous contrasts.
473
Shakespeare's _Henry IV_. If everything were lost that has ever been
preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric
could be completely restored out of this one play.
474
Shakespeare's finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they
are something more than they should be, and for that very reason
indicate the great poet.
475
Shakespeare is dangerous reading for budding talents: he compels them to
reproduce him, and they fancy they are producing themselves.
476
Yorick Sterne was the finest spirit that ever worked. To read him is to
attain a fine feeling of freedom; his humour is inimitable, and it is
not every kind of humour that frees the soul.
477
The peculiar value of so-called popular ballads is that their motives
are drawn direct from nature. This, however, is an advantage of which
the poet of culture could also avail himself, if he knew how to do it.
478
But in popular ballads there is always this advantage, that in the art
of saying things shortly uneducated men are always better skilled than
those who are in the strict sense of the word educated.
479
_Gemüth = Heart_. The translator must proceed until he reaches the
untranslatable; and then only will he have an idea of the foreign nation
and the foreign tongue.
480
When we say of a landscape that it has a romantic character, it is the
secret feeling of the sublime taking the form of the past, or, what is
the same thing, of solitude, absence, or seclusion.
481
The Beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which,
without its presence, would never have been revealed.
482
It is said: Artist, study nature! But it is no trifle to develop the
noble out of the commonplace, or beauty out of uniformity.
483
When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an
irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.
484
For all other Arts we must make some allowance; but to Greek Art alone
we are always debtors.
485
There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art; and no surer way
of uniting with it than by Art.
486
Even in the moments of highest happiness and deepest misery we need the
Artist.
487
False tendencies of the senses are a kind of desire after realism,
always better than that false tendency which expresses itself as
idealistic longing.
488
The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in
Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and
intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses.
489
It is only by Art, and especially by Poetry, that the imagination is
regulated. Nothing is more frightful than imagination without taste.
490
If we were to despise Art on the ground that it is an imitation of
Nature, it might be answered that Nature also imitates much else;
further, that Art does not exactly imitate that which can be seen by the
eyes, but goes back to that element of reason of which Nature consists
and according to which Nature acts.
491
Further, the Arts also produce much out of themselves, and, on the other
hand, add much where Nature fails in perfection, in that they possess
beauty in themselves. So it was that Pheidias could sculpture a god
although he had nothing that could be seen by the eye to imitate, but
grasped the appearance which Zeus himself would have if he were to come
before our eyes.
492
Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and ineradicably
in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with
Religion.
493
A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as _frozen music_; and it was
inevitable that many people should shake their heads over his remark. We
believe that no better repetition of this fine thought can be given than
by calling architecture a _speechless music_.
494
Art is essentially noble; therefore the artist has nothing to fear from
a low or common subject. Nay, by taking it up, he ennobles it; and so it
is that we see the greatest artists boldly exercising their sovereign
rights.
495
In every artist there is a germ of daring, without which no talent is
conceivable.
496
All the artists who are already known to me from so many sides, I
propose to consider exclusively from the ethical side; to explain from
the subject-matter and method of their work the part played therein by
time and place, nation and master, and their own indestructible
personality; to mould them to what they became and to preserve them in
what they were.
497
Art is a medium of what no tongue can utter; and thus it seems a piece
of folly to try to convey its meaning afresh by means of words. But, by
trying to do so, the understanding gains; and this, again, benefits the
faculty in practice.
498
An artist who produces valuable work is not always able to give an
account of his own or others' performances.
499
We know of no world except in relation to mankind; and we wish for no
Art that does not bear the mark of this relation.
500
Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than
lower ones quite attained.
501
Blunt naïvety, stubborn vigour, scrupulous observance of rule, and any
other epithets which may apply to older German Art, are a part of every
earlier and simpler artistic method. The older Venetians, Florentines,
and others had it all too.
502
Because Albrecht Dürer, with his incomparable talent, could never rise
to the idea of the symmetry of beauty, or even to the thought of a
fitting conformity to the object in view, are we never to spurn the
ground!
503
Albrecht Dürer had the advantage of a very profound realistic
perception, an affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions.
He was kept back by a gloomy phantasy, devoid both of form and
foundation.
504
It would be interesting to show how Martin Schön stands near him, and
how the merits of German Art were restricted to these two; and useful
also to show that it was not evening every day.
505
In every Italian school the butterfly breaks loose from the chrysalis.
506
After Klopstock released us from rhyme, and Voss gave us models of
prose, are we to make doggerel again like Hans Sachs?
507
Let us be many-sided! Turnips are good, but they are best mixed with
chestnuts. And these two noble products of the earth grow far apart.
508
In every kind of Art there is a degree of excellence which may be
reached, so to speak, by the mere use of one's own natural talents. But
at the same time it is impossible to go beyond that point, unless Art
comes to one's aid.
509
In the presence of Nature even moderate talent is always possessed of
insight; hence drawings from Nature that are at all carefully done
always give pleasure.
510
To make many sketches issue at last in a complete work is something that
not even the best artists always achieve.
511
In the sphere of true Art there is no preparatory school, but there is a
way of preparation; and the best preparation is the interest of the most
insignificant pupil in the work of the master. Colour-grinders have
often made excellent painters.
512
If an artist grasps Nature aright and contrives to give its form a
nobler, freer grace, no one will understand the source of his
inspiration, and every one will swear that he has taken it from the
antique.
513
In studying the human form, let the painter reject what is exaggerated,
false, and mechanical; but let him learn to grasp of what infinite grace
the human body is capable.
514
Kant taught us the critique of the reason. We must have a critique of
the senses if Art in general, and especially German Art, is ever to
regain its tone and move forward on the path of life and happiness.
SCIENCE
515
In the sphere of natural science let us remember that we have always to
deal with an insoluble problem. Let us prove keen and honest in
attending to anything which is in any way brought to our notice, most of
all when it does not fit in with our previous ideas. For it is only
thereby that we perceive the problem, which does indeed lie in nature,
but still more in man.
516
A man cannot well stand by himself, and so he is glad to join a party;
because if he does not find rest there, he at any rate finds quiet and
safety.
517
It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and
to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.
518
In the history of science and throughout the whole course of its
progress we see certain epochs following one another more or less
rapidly. Some important view is expressed, it may be original or only
revived; sooner or later it receives recognition; fellow workers spring
up; the outcome of it finds its way into the schools; it is taught and
handed down; and we observe, unhappily, that it does not in the least
matter whether the view be true or false. In either case its course is
the same; in either case it comes in the end to be a mere phrase, a
lifeless word stamped on the memory.
519
First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.
520
Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient
understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in
their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words. We may surmise, or
even see quite well, that such theories are make-shifts; but do not
passion and party-spirit love a make-shift at all times? And rightly,
too, because they stand in so much need of it.
521
It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man
oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him
neither joy nor credit.
522
There are some hundred Christian sects, every one of them acknowledging
God and the Lord in its own way, without troubling themselves further
about one another. In the study of nature, nay, in every study, things
must of necessity come to the same pass. For what is the meaning of