“There were opium-dens, where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.”

“There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses.”

“Der Träumer braucht nur den Mond, um sich zurechtzufinden, und zur Strafe sieht er den Morgen schon vor dem Rest der Welt.”

“Für den Philosophen sind die Frauen der Triumph der Materie über den Geist, - genau wie die Männer der Triumph des Geistes über die Moral sind.”

“What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colourless.”

“Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the soul alone are shameful.”

“After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.”