One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry.

Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.

Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

The main thing is to know something and to say it.

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics.

A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.

Dreams don't work unless you take action. The surest way to make your dreams come true is to live them.

... it's a bad sign when someone drinks a lot and doesn't laugh.

Thinking right makes us good

All my desire was the conversion of the heathen... I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.

They decided the mummy would be unwrapped, for the titillation of the ladies, just after dinner.

Every condition of the soul has its own sign and expression...So you will see how hard it is to seem original without being so.

You have to get something down, and then find ways of working in complexity and different layers of meaning... My first drafts are usually the ravings of a delusional fantasist.

I figured that if anyone could be wildly popular in one town, then that could be replicated everywhere, all you have to do is get the word out.

All Thing Serve the Beam

The presence of the present has become insistent, undeniable, and I dare not look away.