One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

Never to read another book that was born and baptized (with ink) at the same time.

Cows sometimes wear an expression resembling wonderment arrested on its way to becoming a question. In the eye of superior intelligence, on the other hand, lies the nil admirari spread out like the monotony of a cloudless sky.

In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.

With one more talent one frequently stands with greater instability than with one less, as a table stands better on three legs than on four.

There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation.

For the longest time, marriage has had a guilty conscience about itself. Should we believe it?--Yes, we should believe it.