—We are always disguised: the higher a man's nature the more is he in need of remaining incognito. If there be a God, then out of sheer decency He ought only to show Himself on earth in the form of a man.
—We are capable of otium, of the unconditional conviction that although a handicraft does not shame one in any sense, it certainly reduces one's rank. However much we may respect "industry," and know how to give it its due, we do not appreciate it in a bourgeois sense, or after the manner of those insatiable and cackling artists who, like hens, cackle and lay eggs, and cackle again.
—We protect artists and poets and any one who happens to be a master in something; but as creatures of a higher order than those, who only know how to do something, who are only "productive men," we do not confound ourselves with them.
—We find joy in all forms and ceremonies; we would fain foster everything formal, and we are convinced that courtesy is one of the greatest virtues; we feel suspicious of every kind of laisser aller, including the freedom of the press and of thought; because, under such conditions, the intellect grows easy-going and coarse, and stretches its limbs.
—We take pleasure in women as in a perhaps daintier, more delicate, and more ethereal kind of creature. What a treat it is to meet creatures who have only dancing and nonsense and finery in their minds! They have always been the delight of every tense and profound male soul, whose life is burdened with heavy responsibilities.
—We take pleasure in princes and in priests, because in big things, as in small, they actually uphold the belief in the difference of human values, even in the estimation of the past, and at least symbolically.
—We are able to keep silence i but we do not breathe a word of this in the presence of listeners.
—We are able to endure long enmities: we lack the power of easy reconciliations.
—We have a loathing of demagogism, of enlightenment, of amiability, and plebeian familiarity.
—We collect precious things, the needs of higher and fastidious souls; we wish to possess nothing in common. We want to have our own books, our own landscapes.