To Foreswear vengeance is to chain oneself to forgiveness, to flounder in pardon, to be tainted by the hatred smothered within.

Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist-a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist-only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression.

To read is to let someone else work for you - the most delicate form of exploitation.

The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.

To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy.

I have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual.