The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs.

God will pardon: That's His business.

I am no longer a divine biped. I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Weimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man.

Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.

Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.