Any order is a balancing act of extreme precariousness.

The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.

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

To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.

Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism

For what is the program of the bourgeois parties? A bad poem on springtime, filled to bursting with metaphors.

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