The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest.

A book is a human fact; a great book like Seraphita gathers together numerous psychological elements. These elements become coherent through a sort of psychological beauty. It does the reader a service.

Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.

To verify images kills them, and it is always more enriching to imagine than to experience.

One doesn't read poetry while thinking of other things.

The only possible proof of the existence of water, the most convincing and the most intimately true proof, is thirst.

When we are children, people show us so many things that we lose the profound sense of seeing... And just how could adults show us the world they have lost! They know; they think they know; they say they know.