We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!

In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial — as the real artists of life do.

I have been casting shadows all my life without caring about how deeply they stain my soul.

Once we have found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose--and then to find--ourselves once again: assuming,that is, that we are thinkers. For a thinker it is a drawback to be bound to a single person all the time.

I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!

That is an artist as I would have an artist be, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art--panemet Circen.