The man in ecstasy and the man drowning: both raise their arms.

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

But eternity is not temporality at a standstill. What is oppressive about the concept of the eternal is the justification, incomprehensible to us, that time must undergo in eternity and the logical conclusion of that, the justification of ourselves as we are.

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.

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.

My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else, my job will never take possession of me, it may, however, shatter me completely, and this is by no means a remote possibility.

There is a down-and-outness under true knowledge and a childlike happy arising from it.