You walk on corpses, beauty, undismayed.

With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose. But get drunk.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have any. And therefore, the great man, in order to exist, must possess a force of attack which is greater than the force of resistance developed by millions of people.

There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent.

Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!

In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.

To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.