The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman; and there is only one relationship...

I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

To have distinctiveness is to believe in the distinctiveness of everyone else, because distinctiveness is not mine but is God’s gift by which he gives being to me, and he indeed gives to all, gives...

Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your...

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!

People unable to bear the martyrdom […] unintelligently jump off the path, and choose instead, conveniently enough, the world’s admiration of their proficiency. The true knight of faith is a witness, never a teacher, and...

It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.

Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.

Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.

Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally and happily secured against despair.

It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived—forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes...

Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression ‘imitators.’ He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression ‘follower’ he always explains...

As the ironist does not have the new within his power, it might be asked how he destroys the old, and to this it must be answered: he destroys the given actuality by the given...

He who does not know how to encircle a girl so that she loses sight of everything he does not want her to see, he who does not know how to poetize himself into a...

The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling...

I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of...

For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm,...

Only by investing and speaking yourvision with passion can the truth, oneway or the other, finally penetrate thereluctance of the world.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Had I to carve an inscription on my tombstone I would ask for none other than “The Individual

Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forward.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more...

The majority of men in every generation, even those who, as it is described, devote themselves to thinking, live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more,...

A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish....

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.

The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.

One can advise comfortably from a safe port.

For I have trained myself and am training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought

The profundity of Christianity is that Christ is both our redeemer and our judge, not that one is our redeemer and another is our judge, for then we certainly come under judgement, but that the...

Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes–and your enemy looks just...

Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.

What our age lacks is not reflection, but passion.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s...

People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a...

A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to...

I shall be your poet! I do not want to be a poet for others; make your appearance, and I shall be your poet. I shall eat my own poem, and that will be my...

Pleasure disappoints, possibility never

Philosophy is life’s dry-nurse, who can take care of us — but not suckle us.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, no error, no crime is so absolutely repugnant to God as everything which is official; and why? because the official is so impersonal and therefore the deepest insult which can be offered...

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element.

I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the System, if only I can manage to set eyes on it. Hitherto I have had no success; and though...

With the daguerreotype everyone will be able to have their portrait taken—formerly it was only the prominent—and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we...

The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes.