I know no other way to associate with great tasks than as play: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential presupposition.

Lust and self-mutilation are closely related impulses. There are also self-mutilators among knowers: they do not want to be creators under any circumstances.

The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her in refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising.

In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very remarkable man.

Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Robinson had a servant even better than Friday: His name was Crusoe.