Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature

Whom do you call bad?--Those who always want to induce shame.

People who, out of an inborn moderation, leave every glass standing only half-emptied refuse to admit that everything in the world has its sediments and dregs.

One should adpot only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand--or escape.

The great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality.

But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does "eternal life" matter, or life at all?

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.