It matters less to venerate things than to live with them on terms of good friendship.

Unkindness almost always stands for the displeasure that one has in oneself.

The sight or sound of perfect things causes a certain suffering.

German civility, which often seems stiff to us, shows an attentive and touching respect for the person that I often prefer to our offhandedness.

Our present-day artists do not transform, they deform. That gives pleasure to nobody. It changes everything, therefore it changes nothing.

I can easily do without people (there are days when I could easily do without myself), and ... in the country of books where I dwell, the dead can count entirely as much as the living.

It matters less to venerate things than to live with them on terms of good friendship.