Loving and perishing: it's been a rhyme all these eternities. The will to love: that is, also being willing to die.

It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.

We can speak very much to the purpose and yet in such a way that the whole world cries out in contradiction: namely, when we are not speaking to the whole world.

What good is a book that does not even transport us beyond all books?

There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.

Just as bones, tissues, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed in a skin that makes it possible to bear the sight of a human being, so the agitations and passions of the soul are wrapped up in vanity: it is the soul's skin.

There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.