Science and art have that in common that everyday things seem to them new and attractive.

Many deeds are done so as to forget another deed: there are also opiate activities. I exist so that another will be forgotten.

Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, and thus neither melancholy nor bored. [...] A human being may well ask an animal: 'Why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me?' The animal would like to answer, and say, 'The reason is I always forget what I was going to say' - but then he forgot this answer too, and stayed silent.

Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia, - let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores!

Oh great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have us to shine for?

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

Whenever the strength of a belief strongly steps into the foreground, we must infer a certain weakness of demonstrability and the improbability of that belief.