I have read true piety defined as: loving one’s destiny unconditionally – and there is something in it. That is to say: I think that in a way this sort of “religiousness” is the condition for real happiness.

I don't believe in evil; I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots.

The real difference between God and human beings is that God cannot stand continence. No sooner has he created a season of a year, or a time of day, than he wishes for something quite different and sweeps it all away. And human beings cleave to the existing state of things. All their lives they are striving to hold the moment fast, and are up against a force majeure. Their art itself is nothing but the attempt to catch by all means the one particular moment, one mood, one light, the momentary beauty of one woman or one flower, and make it everlasting.

The entire being of a woman is a secret which should be kept.

I had seen a herd of Elephant travelling through dense native forest ... pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.

It is difficult to restrain admirers of Shakespeare once they have begun to speak of him.

In the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing, like a hidden physical defect.