No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.
The artist is the compass which, through the raging of the storm, points steadily to the north.
There is only one necessary condition for the emergence of a new theatre, that the stage and auditorium should be open to the masses, should be able to contain a people and the actions of a people.
History furnishes to politics all the arguments that it needs, for the chosen cause.
Love of my country does not demand that I shall hate and slay those noble and faithful souls who also love theirs.
When nothing hampers action, the soul has fewer reasons for action.
Mozart was able to do what he wished in music and he never wished to so what was beyond him.
Everyone, deep down within, carries a small cemetery of those he has loved.
There is no joy other than the joy of creating. There is no man who is truly alive other than one who is creating. All others are just shadows on the earth with nothing to do with being alive. The joy of living, whether it is love or action, is the joy of creating.
I would rather have this life of combat than the moral calm and mournful stupor of these last years. God give me struggle, enemies, howling crowds, all the combot of which I am capable.
A great nation assailed by war has not only its frontiers to protect: it must also protect its good sense. It must protect itself from the hallucinations, injustices, and follies which the plague lets loose.
Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow.
I know at last what distinguishes man from animals; financial worries.
One day History will pass judgment on each of the nations at war; she will weigh their measure of errors, lies, and heinous follies. Let us try to make ours light before her!
As a result of all his education, from everything he hears and sees around him, the child absorbs such a lot of lies and foolish nonsense, mixed in with essential truths, that the first duty of the adolescent who wants to be a healthy man is to disgorge it all.
It is not peace that I seek, but life.
The theatre, like the fresco, is art fitted to its place. And therefore it is above all else the human art, the living art.
Most men die at twenty or thirty; thereafter they are only reflections of themselves: for the rest of their lives they are aping themselves, repeating from day to day more and more mechanically and affectedly what they said and did and thought and loved when they were alive.
Let each man have his share of sun and shade.
Zijn jullie kinderen van Goethe of van Atilla voeren jullie oorlog tegen de legers of tegen de mensheid, dood de mensen maar respecteer hun werken!