Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something ugly. His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride - they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.

One man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to loose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison for you.

Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia, - let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores!

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.

As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones but by extreme positions of the opposite kind.