The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.

Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.

Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics.

There are places where the mind dies so that a truth which is its very denial may be born.

Truth, like light, is blinding. Lies, on the other hand, are a beautiful dusk, which enhances the value of each object.

For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers.

There is not one talent for living and another for creating. The same suffices for both. And one can be sure that the talent that could not produce but an artificial work could not sustain but a frivolous life.