If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.

Inexperienced girls flatter themselves with the notion that it is in their power to make a man happy.

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.

The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.