People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.

In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly obedient to its own laws, it doesn't know art, just as it doesn't know freedom, just as it doesn't know goodness.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we're absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.