The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

The greatest giver of alms is cowardice.

Today a man of knowledge might well feel as though he were God transformed into an animal.

At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the hardest service. What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart...that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience.

The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

There is one thing one has to have either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.