Quotes by Johann Peter Eckermann

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The poet... as long as he expresses only his few subjective feelings, he does not yet deserve the name of poet: but as soon as he succeeds in bringing his world closer and expressing it, he is a true poet. Then it is inexhaustible and can always be renewed, while a subjective nature quickly exhausts the little inner endowment it has and falls into mannerism, destroying itself.

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In art...he who wants to accomplish something great must have reached such a degree of culture that, like the ancient Greeks, he is unable to raise real nature, inferior to him, to the height of his spirit and to transform into reality what in some natural phenomena, either because of who knows which inherent weakness, or because of some external obstacles, could not be fully realized, remaining only a simple intention.