A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents.

Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.

The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.

It is most important to allow the brain the full measure of sleep which is required to restore it; for sleep is to a man's whole nature what winding up is to a clock.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.

What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.

Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible