Make your guesses as to the author and the work in the comment section below!

[edit: hint…German from the 1800s]

The measure of the nature is also the measure of the understanding.  If the nature is limited, so also is the feeling, so also is the understanding.  But to a limited being its limited understanding is not felt to be a limitation; on the contrary, it is perfectly happy and contented with this understanding; it regards it, praises and values it, as a glorious, divine power; and the limited understanding, on its part, values the limited nature whose understanding it is.  Each is exactly adapted to the other; how should they be at issue with each other?  A being’s understanding is its sphere of vision.  As far as thou seest, so far extends thy nature; and conversely.  The eye of the brute reaches so far as it needs, and its nature no farther than it needs.  And so far as thy nature reaches, so far reaches thy unlimited self-consciousness, so far art thou God.  The discrepancy between the understanding and the nature, between the power of perception and the power of production in the human consciousness, on the one hand, is merely of individual significance and has not a universal application; and, on the other hand, it is only apparent.  He who, having written a bad poem, knows it to be bad, is in his intelligence, and therefore in his nature, not so limited as he who, having written a bad poem, admires it and thinks it good.