Truths are illlusions which we have forgotten are illusions.

Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

Could truth perhaps be a woman who has reasons for not permitting her reasons to be seen? Could her name perhaps be--to speak Greek--Baubo?... Oh, those Greeks! They understood how to live: to do that it is necessary to stop bravely at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore the appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial--out of profundity!

Human existence basically is──a never to be completed imperfect tense.

We criticize a man or a book most sharply when we sketch out their ideal.

It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.