What verse is for the poet, dialectical thinking is for the philosopher. He grasps for it in order to get hold of his own enchantment, in order to perpetuate it.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.

Once we have found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose--and then to find--ourselves once again: assuming,that is, that we are thinkers. For a thinker it is a drawback to be bound to a single person all the time.

However closely people are attached to one another, their mutual horizon nonetheless includes all four compass directions, and nowand again they notice it.

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon; women at once make it into an ornament.