Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

If you want your wife to listen to you, then talk to another woman; she will be all ears.

Religion (is) a universal obsessional neurosis.

I prefer the company of animals more than the company of humans. Certainly, a wild animal is cruel. But to be merciless is the privilege of civilized humans.

The individual does actually carry on a double existence: one designed to serve his own purposes and another as a link in a chain, in which he serves against, or at any rate without, any volition of his own.

A string of reproaches against other people leads one to suspect the existence of a string of self-reproaches with the same content.

When the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his timidity, but he does not see any the more clearly for doing so.