“The division of Philosopher and Poet is only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both. It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly constitution.”

“Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease.”

“The reason, however, why the philosopher may be likened to the poet is this: both are concerned with the marvellous.”

“The warfare between poetry and philosophy certainly started with Plato, who was both poet and philosopher.”

“Signs are not empirical objects. Empirical objects become signs (or they are looked at as signs) only from the point of view of a philosophical decision.”

“Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a disease.”

“Apparently that does sometimes happen. Apparently even men like Chichikov are transformed into poets for a few moments in their lives: though the word "poet" would be an exaggeration here.”

“Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

“Philosophers are moral, and poets are picturesque about the country.”

“Coleridge, poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium.”