Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did not count his work, anyone could have done it. What had he known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife. Curious, that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still his fulfillment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.

That is the real pivot of all bourgeois consciousness in all countries: fear and hate of the instinctive, intuitional, procreativebody in man or woman. But of course this fear and hate had to take on a righteous appearance, so it became moral, said that the instincts, intuitions and all the activities of the procreative body were evil, and promised a reward for their suppression. That is the great clue to bourgeois psychology: the reward business.

We must know, if only in order to learn not to know. The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know. That is, how not to interfere.

Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent.

One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.

That's how women are with me " said Paul. "They want me like mad but they don't want to belong to me.

I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about 16.