That which reminds us of nature and thus stimulates a feeling for the infinite abundance of life is beautiful. Nature is organic,and therefore the highest beauty is forever vegetative; and the same is true for morality and love.

An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.

In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it; the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern.

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.