To the lover the loved one always appears as solitary.

As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.

The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.

Each morning the day lies like a fresh shirt on our bed; this incomparably fine, incomparably tightly woven tissue of pure prediction fits us perfectly. The happiness of the next twenty-four hours depends on our ability, on waking, to pick it up.

Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to redeem them

You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.