To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.

I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction -- if a house is falling upon you, for instance -- one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may...

Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life?

A wise man can't seriously make himself anything, only a fool makes himself anything.

With quietism like yours one could fill a hundred years with happiness. Whether one showed you an execution or a little finger, you would extract an equally edifying thought from both of them, and would still be content. That's the way to get on in life.

We obtained literature by our own efforts, it is a product of our own life, and that is why we love it so much and hold it so dear, why we pin our hopes on it.

I maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly.