There is not sufficient religion in the world merely to put an end to the number of religions.

If Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is dealing with men.

The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she perpetrates a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, glancing around to see whether anybody notices--and to make sure that somebody notices.

Socrates condemned art because he preferred philosophy and only after much internal struggle did Plato accept this judgment.

Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases -- which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal.

He who lives as children live - who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance - remains childlike.

Bad cooks - and the utter lack of reason in the kitchen - have delayed human development longest and impaired it most.