I like being myself. Myself and nasty.

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.

Industrial man—a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.

The poet is born with the capacity of arranging words in such a way that something of the quality of the graces and inspirations he has received can make itself felt to other human beings in the white spaces, so to speak, between the lines of his verse. This is a great and precious gift; but if the poet remains content with his gift, if he persists in worshipping the beauty in art and nature without going on to make himself capable, through selflessness, of apprehending Beauty as it is in the divine Ground, then he is only an idolater.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.