One of the most obtuse superstitions is the superstition of the scientists who say that man can exist without faith.

For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.

War is like a game of chess ... but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone.... Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, and least of all on position.

One must be cunning and wicked in this world.

... a man has to think of his soul before everything else.

Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn't my own.

And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.