The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.

There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. it was also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. the flneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them.

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.