The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.

The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars.

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.

For none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

A child of my own! Oh, no, no, no! Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and ignominiousness of life.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.