The world is no nursery.

It sounds not only disagreeable but also paradoxical, yet it must nevertheless be said that anyone who is to be really free and happy in love must have surmounted his respect for women and have come to terms with the idea of incest with his mother or sister.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.

...perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions are not, like religious ones, incapable of correction.

Adolescent stage in the development of the human race from which humanity should free itself.

I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador