The power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.

We do not always proclaim loudly the most important thing we have to say. Nor do we always privately share it with those closest to us, our intimate friends, those who have been most devotedly ready to receive our confession.

Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things.

The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.