And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

All idealists imagine that the causes they serve are fundamentally better than any other causes in the world, and they refuse to believe that if their cause is to flourish at all it requires precisely the same foul-smelling manure that is necessary to all other human undertakings.

That roguish and cheerful vice, politeness.

The most dangerous physicians are those born actors who imitate born physicians with a perfectly deceptive guile.

It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.

Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.