Goethe is the last German before whom I feel reverence.

Stendhal is utterly invaluable with his anticipating psychologist's eye, with his grasp of facts, as an honest atheist. Perhaps I am even envious of Stendhal. He robbed me of the best atheist joke. "God's only excuse is that he does not exist."

Dostoyevsky-- the only psychologist from whom I had anything to learn. A profound human being.

One who instinctively nourishes himself only on ambrosia, leaving behind what is indigestible in things.

No poet has given me the same artistic delight as I derived from the very first from an Horatian ode.

Voltaire was above all, in contrast to all who wrote after him, a nobleman of the spirit-- like me.

Machiavelli is related to me closely by his unconditional will not to deceive himself.

I have something of Montaigne's wantonness in my spirit, who knows? perhaps also in my body.