Despair, night in the grieving senses.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the tree of life.

When we are thirsty, we drink the white waters of the pool, the sweetness of our mournful childhood.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful,...

Writers speak stench.

Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

Evil is whatever distracts.

Earlier lives drift by on silver soles, and the shadows of the damned descend into these sighing waters.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself...

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down...

I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

For whoever is lonely there is a tavern.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

My “fear” is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their...

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

The blue of my eyes is extinguished in this night, the red gold of my heart.

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to...

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

The guilt of newborns is immense.

The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Silently, God opens his golden eyes over the place of skulls.