I feel all those human beings to be pernicious who can no longer oppose what they love: they thereby ruin the best things and people.

I have been casting shadows all my life without caring about how deeply they stain my soul.

A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession.

Men have hitherto treated women like birds which have strayed down to them from the heights; as something more delicate, more fragile, more savage, stranger, sweeter, soulful--but as something which has to be caged up so that it shall not fly away.

The spirit of the poet craves spectators... even if only buffaloes.

Every past is worth condemning.