There are ancient and modern poems which breathe, in their entirety and in every detail, the divine breath of irony. In such poemsthere lives a real transcendental buffoonery. Their interior is permeated by the mood which surveys everything and rises infinitely above everything limited, even above the poet's own art, virtue, and genius; and their exterior form by the histrionic style of an ordinary good Italian buffo.

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.

Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.

Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man.

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself.