People keep themselves at a tolerable height above an infernal abyss toward which they gravitate only by putting out all their strength and lovingly helping one another. They are tied together by ropes, and it's bad enough when the ropes around an individual loosen and he drops somewhat lower than the others into empty space; ghastly when the ropes break and he falls. That's why we should cling to the others.

Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man.

There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.

If education tries to make other persons out of us than we essentially are, deeper inside, it stultifies, and reproach matters.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

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.