The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police - It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Before you take anything away, you must have something better to put in its place.

Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction.

It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.