"The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support."

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

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

"Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists."

"One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory."

"One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so."

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

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

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

"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."

"Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made."

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

"In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it."

"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."

"Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old."

"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 to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."

"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, irrespective of guilt."

"May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air."

"Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before."

"Evil is whatever distracts."

"In a certain sense the Good is comfortless."

"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 what he sees among the ruins."

"One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer."

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

"The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man."

"Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb."

"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 sins."

"Association with human beings lures one into self-observation."

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

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

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

"You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

"Writers speak stench."

"In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world."

"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."

"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."

"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."

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

"A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die."

"One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die."

"Religions get lost as people do."

"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."

"There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie."

"There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution."

"Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery."

"Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza."

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

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

"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable."