Whoever commits to paper what he suffers becomes a melancholy author: but he becomes a serious author when he tells us what he suffered and why he now reposes in joy.

I can still stand on life's narrowest footing: but who would I be were I to show you this art. Would you like to see a ropedancer?

And as long as you are in any way ashamed before yourself, you do not yet belong with us.

The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.

If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how. Man does not strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does.

Woman understands children better than man does, but man is more childlike than woman.

My philosophy is inverted Platonism: the further a thing is from true being, the purer, the lovelier, the better it is. Living inillusion as a goal!