An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.

If the student fails to learn the teacher fails to teach.

The road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

I have seen hate born of fear, hate speaking in the name of God and truth, hate holding up a distorting mirror to fellow human beings.

Being in darkness and confusion is interesting to me. But behind it you can rise out of that and see things the way the really are.

Sometimes big designers are afraid that people won't recognize them if they change that much.

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite.

If a secret is revealed, the person who has confided it to another is to be blamed.

If I had a soul, I’d probably wind up in hell anyway.

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

The ever-present phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a city dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly given his sight, who first noted natural beauty.