In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

If the meaning of life has become doubtful, if one's relations to others and to oneself do not offer security, then fame is one means to silence one's doubts. It has a function to be compared with that of the Egyptian pyramids or the Christian faith in immortality: it elevates one's individual life from its limitations and instability to the plane of indestructability; if one's name is known to one's contemporaries and if one can hope that it will last for centuries, then one's life has meaning and significance by this very reflection of it in the judgments of others.

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.

Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

...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?