Friedrich Hölderlin

"What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful! Ther…"

"What is the wisdom of a book compared with the wisdom of an angel?"

"When you read Hölderlin, you see feints and variations that put him with Celan; it was reading Hölderlin that gave Rilke the impetus for his Duino Elegies (his "Gods" are like Rilke's "Angels", tutela…"

"You seek life, and a godly fire Gushes and gleams for you out of the earth, As, with shuddering long, you Hurl yourself down to the flames of the Etna. So by a queen's wanton whim Pearls were dissolve…"

"The earth with yellow pears And overgrown with roses wild Upon the pond is bent, And swans divine, With kisses drunk You drop your heads In the sublimely sobering water. But where, with winter come, a…"

"It was the function of poetry, not of himself as the poet, that he thought highly. That function was sacred, for the poet was the priest of the divine. Mr. Peacock – we think rightly – compares him wi…"

"The fact remains that Hölderlin's creed was a kind of pantheism – though it has many varieties – and that his supreme value was beauty – though beauty is variously understood and experienced. Beauty f…"

"The one poet who both grew out of but gave form to many of the thoughts and philosophies of these groups was Friedrich Hölderlin and though his disillusionment with the French revolution was great, th…"