The real pleasure-seeking is the combination of luxury and austerity in such a way that the luxury can really be felt.

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening.

Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.

In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it or he would be obviously below it.