In the bottles I see the horrors that will be produced by their contents; it seems that bottles of monsters, snakes and maggots from the natural science museum appear in front of me.
In art form is everything, material has no value. Staub charges the same for a tailcoat sewn from its own stock as for a tailcoat sewn from the customer's stock. He reasons this by the fact that payment requires the cut, and the cloth gives it.
In Italy, music has become a nation. Here, in the north, things are completely and completely different: there music has become human and is called Mozart or Meyerbeer.
In literature, as in the wild forests of North America, sons kill their fathers when they grow old and weak.
In literature, as in life, every son has a parent that in some cases he does not know, and in others, he would like to get rid of him.
In love, as in the Roman Catholic religion, there is a preliminary purgatory, in which, before arriving in eternal hell, you get used to the idea of being roasted.
In the letter dedicated to the friend: "If you do not send me forty thalers urgently, I will endure hunger because of you."
In the works of some fashionable writers we find traces of nature, by no means a description of it.
In the creations of all great poets, there are basically no secondary characters, each character being, in its own way, a hero.
Basically, it doesn't matter what you die for; but if you die for something dear such a warm and true death is better than a cold and false life.
In dark times it was best to lead the peoples by means of religion, for in darkness the blind man is the best guide: he discerns the way and the paths better than he who sees.
In theory, modern religion is dispersed, in idea it is dead, but it lives on mechanically, like the headless fly, which, though it cannot see, continues to spin and fly.
Great genius is formed with the help of another genius not so much by assimilation as by the help of misunderstanding.
The whole world is torn in two. Since the poet's heart is the center of the world, in our times, breaking it would be the most painful. The great rupture of the world passes through my heart.
There are no atheists in France, and there is not enough respect left for God to bother denying it.
The magic formula by which our red and blue uniforms win women's hearts faster than the gallantry of mustaches: "Tomorrow I will leave and probably never come back."
Voltaire kindly illuminates the faces of the great men of the world with the same lamp with which he illuminates their nakedness.
All healthy people love life.
I leave all my property to my wife, provided she remarries. I want to make sure that at least one man will mourn my death.
Entering the church, I felt the physical and spiritual freshness of the cool wind blowing gently. Whatever one says, Catholicism is a good summertime religion.
Anyone who marries is like a doge who is given to marry the Adriatic Sea: does he not know what is hidden in the soul of the one he marries: treasures, pearls, monsters, unprecedented storms?
Where the woman ends, the reckless man begins.
The primary goal of the stager of an opera is to make sure that the music does not disturb anyone.
The sincerest truth blossoms only as a result of the sincerest love.
The one who tries to cover his own misfortune by the merits of his ancestors shows stupidity.
The fools believe that in order to take control of the Capitol, they must first attack the geese.
The homeopathic principle that woman rids us of women is best confirmed in practice.
When the Danish missionaries tried to impose Christianity on the Greenlanders, the latter asked them: there, in the Christian paradise, are there seals? Getting a negative answer, they sadly declared: in this case, the Christian paradise is not suitable for the Greenlanders, who cannot exist without seals.
The crude memory of the people preserves only the names of the oppressors and those of the oppressive but brave war heroes. The tree of mankind forgets the quiet gardener who tended it in the cold, watered it in times of drought, and protected it against pests: but it honorably retains the names, ruthlessly embedded in the bark by the steel spear.
Yes, women are dangerous; but the beautiful ones are not so dangerous as those who possess more intellectual than physical capacities. The former are used to being courted by men, while the latter meet men's pride and, luring them with tricks, surround themselves with more admirers.