In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

Speaking of Georges Bizet: His music has the tang of sunny climates, their bracing air, their clearness. It voices a sensibility hitherto unknown to us.

The best way to give assistance to those who are deeply embarrassed and to calm them down is to praise them decisively.

You shall not steal! You shall not kill! Such words were once called holy; before them people bowrd their knees and heads, and removed their shoes. But I ask you: where have there ever been better thieves and killers in the world than such holy words have been? Is there not in all of life itself - robbing and killing? And when such words were called holy, was not truth itself thereby - killed?

The melancholia of everything completed!

A man who whinnies with noisy laughter, surpasses all the animals in vulgarity.

It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.---