Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.

Casting aspersions on those we love always does something to loosen our ties. We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands.

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. The ordinary person today lives better than a king did a century ago but is ungrateful!

Come, let’s be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer.

I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.

Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.