Freedom is only to be found where there is burden to be shouldered. In creative achievements this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weighs heavily upon man’s mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, but this is not to say that everyone in a melancholy mood is creative.

Questioning is the piety of thought.

Is the earth in our head? Or do we stand on the earth?

We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time.

Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant.

Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

We should live totally in the face of the night and of the Evil.