The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real.

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.

Uprooting is by far the most dangerous of the ills of human society, for it perpetuates itself.

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.

Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false?