“How difficult it is to reach anything approaching a moderate and relatively calm point of view in the midst of one's emotions.”

“To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.”

“Apart from the agglomeration of huge masses in which the individual disappears anyway, one of the chief factors responsible for psychological mass-mindedness is scientific rationalism, which robs the individual of his foundations and his dignity. As a social unit he has lost his individuality and become a mere abstract number in the bureau of statistics. He can only play the role of an interchangeable unit of infinitesimal importance. Looked at rationally and from outside, that is exactly what he is, and from this point of view it seems positively absurd to go on talking about the value or meaning of the individual.”

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”

“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”

“Abraham Lincoln has crossed my path, when I was a little boy in school. He was pointed out to the schoolchildren as the model of a citizen, who has devoted his life to the welfare of his country—very much in the same way as those great men – bene meriti de patria – of the Roman republic and the Greek polis. Thus Abraham Lincoln has remained since my early days one of the shining stars in the assembly of immortal heroes. Is there greater fame than to be removed to the timeless sphere of mythical existence?”

“The book [Joyce's "Ulysses"] can just as well be read backwards, for it has no back and no front, no top and no bottom. Everything could easily have happened before, or might have happened afterwards. You can read any of the conversations just as pleasurably backwards, for you don't miss the point of the gags. Every sentence is a gag, but taken together they make no point. You can also stop in the middle of a sentence--the first half still makes sense enough to live by itself, or at least seems to. The whole work has the character of a worm cut in half, that can grow a new head or a new tail as required.”