When a scholar of the old culture vows no longer to have anything to do with men who believe in progress, he is right. For the old culture has its greatness and goodness behind it, and an historical education forces one to admit that it can never again be fresh.

Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us.

Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

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.

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

Poets and writers who are in love with the superlative all want to do more than they can.