THE SUFFERING OF GENIUS AND ITS VALUE. The artistic genius desires to give pleasure, but if his mind is on a very high plane he does not easily find anyone to share his pleasure; he offers entertainment but nobody accepts it. That gives him, in certain circumstances, a comically touching pathos; for he has no right to force pleasure on men. He pipes, but none will dance: can that be tragic?

The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of “eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does not say in a book.

There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil.

The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own--that is, for his age--so as to be able even then to take pleasurein himself.

Supposing truth is a woman -- what then?

When I seek another word for 'music', I never find any other word than 'Venice'

To our strongest impulse, to the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience yields.