Lust and self-mutilation are closely related impulses. There are also self-mutilators among knowers: they do not want to be creators under any circumstances.

The unselective knowledge drive resembles the indiscriminate sexual drive--signs of vulgarity!

Life is that which must overcome itself again and again

We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!

Books that teach us to dance: There are writers who, by portraying the impossible as possible, and by speaking of morality and genius as if both were high-spirited freedom, as if man were rising up on tiptoe and simply had to dance out of inner pleasure.

Our knowledge will take its revenge on us, just as ignorance exacted its revenge during the Middle Ages.

What separates two people most profoundly is a different sense and degree of cleanliness.