The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden.

I shall need to sleep three weeks on end to get rested from the rest I've had.

Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.

Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.

He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.