That which does not destroy, strengthens.

That a person cannot and consequently will not defend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes ; but we despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good will for revenge whether it be a man or a woman.

It is with artworks as it is with wine: it is much better when we do not need either one, when we stick with water, and when out of our own inner fire, the inner sweetness of our own soul, we turn the water over and over again into wine ourselves.

Probability but no truth, facility but no freedom--it is owing to these two fruits that the tree of knowledge cannot be confused with the tree of life.

Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree. Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure- or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them, is not something dreadful also.

I want to know whether you are a person devoted to creating or to exchanging in some respect or other: as a creator you belong tothe free, as an exchanger you are their slave and instrument.