All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has ever escaped from their hands alive.

For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.

And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.

The criminal is quite frequently not equal to his deed: he belittles and slanders it.

Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine.

Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them.

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