It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.---

It is difficult to live among people because silence is so difficult.

The golden fleece of self-sufficiency guards against cudgel- blows but not against pin-pricks.

There are expressions and bulls-eyes of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself 'culture' a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture.

There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.