The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.

I am not a man, I am dynamite!

A book full of brilliance imparts some of it even to its opponents.

The usual false conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists, therefore it has a right to exist.

Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.

In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it. Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty -he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world -alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession.