Sickness sensitizes man for observation, like a photographic plate.

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

I feel sure that coups d'état would go much better if there were seats, boxes, and stalls so that one could see what was happening and not miss anything.

Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization.

There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.

I'm not weird, just different from people who aren't different.

If you are one of the truly elect, be careful how you attain your eminence.

Clever talk and domineering manner have little to with being a Man at His Best.

Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship.

Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us.

Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet.

It is easy to make plans but difficult to carry them out

The definition of a stupid thing is something that if you do everything right, you still get hurt. Fire-eating and love are stupid things.

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.

One needs to know what the hierarchy of values are from which one takes inspiration, and in a democratic society this is the subject of continuous democratic debate.