These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely chained. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason?

Forgetting: that is a divine capacity. And whoever aspires to the heights and wants to fly must cast off much that is heavy and make himself light--I call it a divine capacity for lightness.

The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

Physician, help yourself: thus help your patient too. Let this be his best help: that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.

Beware in the presence of cats: they never give, they do not even retaliate--they only reply, and purr in doing so.