Quotes

Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

What moves man is the striving to exist; but when his existence is assured, he knows not what to do with it.

The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of one’s own.

Asked why people give alms to beggars but not to philosophers, he answered that they fear they may become beggars themselves, but never philosophers.

The sun too visits filthy places without being defiled.

What have you gained from philosophy? — This at least, if nothing else: to be prepared for every fortune.

How can death be evil, when in its presence we are not aware of it?

If you fix your eye on a single leaf, you will not see all the others.