But happiness is brittle, and if men and circumstances don't destroy it, it is threatened by ghosts.

This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?

Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.

Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.

If you love life you also love the past, because it is the present as it has survived in memory." Translation by David Downie

I have come to think that great men are characterized precisely by the extreme position which they take, and that their heroism consists in holding to that extremity throughout their lives.

A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.