There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious

He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people.

I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.

I am writing a play which I probably will not finish until the end of November. I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of the lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love.

A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.

What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?