People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.

The finest plans are always ruined by the littleness of those who ought to carry them out, for emperor himself can actually be nothing.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.

Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.

Sin is what is new, strong, surprising, strange. The theatre must take an interest in sin if the young are to be able to go there.

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

For art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.