In the end, we get older, we kill everyone who loves us through the worries we give them, through the troubled tenderness we inspire in them, and the fears we ceaselessly cause.

It is only for those without hope that hope is given.

The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.

The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates, because it clears away the traces of our own age; it cheers, because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed a rooting out, of his own condition.

Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.

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