Is there anything more terrible than a "call"? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre are the two great centers for the propagation of platitudes.

Everything that exalts and expands consciousness is good, while that which depresses and diminishes it is evil.

Consciousness is a disease.

Use harms and even destroys beauty. The noblest function of an object is to be contemplated.

The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule.

There are people who are so full of common sense that they haven't the slightest cranny left for their own sense.

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.