Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals establish a bank.

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.

Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.

Only bad generals need heroes.

Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.

Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.