Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.

Despair itself if it goes on long enough, can become a kind of sanctuary in which one settles down and feels at ease.

In most men there exists a poet who died young, whom the man survived.

With everyone born human, a poet - an artist - is born, who dies young and who is survived by an adult.

Since it is necessary to have enemies, let us endeavour to have those who do us honour.

I have always thought that if we began for one moment to say what we thought, society would collapse.

Nature wants us to enjoy life to the full and die without giving it a second thought; Christianity wants the opposite.