The only treaties that ought to count are those which would effect a settlement between ulterior motives.
We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.
Whoever wants to accomplish great things must devote to a lot of profound thought to details.
It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.
Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the impotence of man. Such insensitiveness is precious. But we must admit that criminals are not unlike our heroes in this respect.
A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
A real writer can be recognized by the fact he doesn’t find words. Therefore he must search for them and while doing that, he finds better ones.
Stupidity is not my strong suit.
What Degas called ‘a way of seeing’ must consequently bear a wide enough interpretation to include way of being, power, knowledge, and will.
My poems mean what people take them to mean.
We must always apologize for talking painting.
The folly of mistaking oneself for an oracle is built right into us.
It is a sign of the times, and not a very good sign, that these days it is necessary and not only necessary but urgent to interest minds in the fate of Mind, that is to say, in their own fate.
Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
My hand feels touched as well as it touches; reality says this, and nothing more.
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.
Our most important thoughts are those that contradict our emotions.
To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth.
To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and totally unexpected thoughts.