Poets are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one.

No argument can persuade me to like oysters if I do not like them. In other words, the disturbing thing about matters of taste is that they are not communicable.

every thought is strictly speaking an after-thought.

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving.

Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.

Psychologically speaking, one may say that the hypocrite is too ambitious; not only does he want to appear virtuous before others, he wants to convince himself.

In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.