He Probably Was Mediocre After All, Though

Art Is The Funnel, As It Were, Through Which Spirit Is Poured Into Life.

Stupid — Well, There Are So Many Kinds Of Stupidity, And Cleverness Is One Of The Worst.

Even In A Personal Sense, After All, Art Is An Intensified Life. By Art One Is More Deeply Satisfied And More Rapidly Used Up. It Engraves On The Countenance Of Its Servant The Traces Of Imaginary And Intellectual Adventures, And Even If He Has Outwardly Existed In Cloistral Tranquility, It Leads In The Long Term To Overfastidiousness, Over-refinement, Nervous Fatigue And Overstimulation, Such As Can Seldom Result From A Life Of The Most Extravagant Passions And Pleasures.

What We Call National-socialism Is The Poisonous Perversion Of Ideas Which Have A Long History In German Intellectual Life.

In Books We Never Find Anything But Ourselves. Strangely Enough, That Always Gives Us Great Pleasure, And We Say The Author Is A Genius.