Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.

The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity.

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

It is not when it is dangerous to tell the truth that its advocates are hardest to find, but when it is boring.

Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.

The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it. - What does not destroy makes me stronger.