He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say.

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

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

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.

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

All disgust is originally disgust at touching.

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