We talk so abstractly about poetry because all of us are usually bad poets.

[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust.

In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

What is wanted - whether this is admitted or not - is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicating all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.

Egoism is the law of perspective applied to feelings: what is closest appears large and weighty, and as one moves farther away size and weight decrease.

Among austere men intimacy involves shame--and is something precious.

Man alone resists the direction of gravitation: he constantly wants to fall--upwards.