It's like scarlet fever: one has to get it over." "Then one should invent a way of inoculating love, like vaccination.

Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them.

I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

the same question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?"... p982

Well, so it isn't time yet to die, is it?