“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”

“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

“But that which fanaticism formerly promised to the elect, science now accomplishes for all men. ”

“Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.”

“After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.”

“When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow.”