...in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power-almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving. Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend energy on?

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempt to save myself from being crushed by it

Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.

Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.

I only wish to be the fountain of love from which you drink, every drop promising eternal passion.

Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers and the sense of unaliveness. Among the evils of life, there are few which are as painful as boredom, and consequently every attempt is made to avoid it.