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.

The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.

All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.

Rather than ask, What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time? I should like to ask, What is its position in them.

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

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.