Reality is the fable convenue of the Philistines.
At the start of life we are most subjective and understand least the subjectivity of others.
All women are French in their feeling for restraint and their hankering after the unrestrained.
The stupidity of the wise, the bluntness of the sharp . . . where is it rooted? In an unchecked desire for mimicry.
Whoever in his intercourse with men guards his manners, is living on his revenues; but he who puts himself above such things draws on his principal.
Children are entertaining because they are easy to entertain.
Under certain conditions a woman will suffer a man to talk with her of his love for another: but all the emphasis must be laid on love, not on the object of love.
Agreement without sympathy is repulsive.
It is not the doer who is made impure by the deed, but the deed by the doer.
By the giving and receiving of thoughts we communicate as with kisses and embraces; he who accepts a thought is not receiving something, but some one.
There is a stillness of autumn which reaches even to its colours.
The whole soul is never at one except when in rapture.
When a man is gone he takes his secret with him: how he—precisely he—found it possible, in the spiritual sense, to live.
Where is thy self to be found? Ever in the deepest enchantment which thou hast undergone.
