This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark

Nothing, you know, gives the body greater satisfaction than ordering people about, or at least believing in one's ability to do so.

The true word leads; the untrue misleads.

The Diabolical sometimes assumes the aspect of the Good, or even embodies itself completely in its form. If this remains concealedfrom me, I am of course defeated, for this Good is more tempting than the genuine Good.

For everything outside the phenomenal world, language can only be used allusively, but never even approximately in a comparative way, since, corresponding as it does to the phenomenal world, it is concerned only with property and its relations.