Quotes by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder

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We forget that the present can just as well be considered eternal, that eternity can be conceived in the sphere of an action, a work of art, not because it lasts forever, but because the action is great and the work of art perfect... Let's transform for these reasons our life in a work of art, and we will be able to boldly claim that we are immortal even from this earth...

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All that is perfect, that is, that which constitutes art, is eternal and imperishable, even if the blind hand of time extinguishes its spark again... A perfect work of art carries eternity within it... By virtue of this fact, even if it extinguishes and worlds perish, the soul of all great deeds, of all poetic and artistic creations lives on. In the perfection of art we see embodied, in its purest and most beautiful form, the dreamed image of paradise, of an undefiled happiness.