Music and love are the only accomplishments of humanity which do not, in an absolute sense, have to be called attempts with unsuitable means.

The first internal relation that is essential to a secret society is the reciprocal confidence of its members.

The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life.

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.

Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession.

In the latter case life rests upon a thousand presuppositions which the individual can never trace back to their origins, and verify; but which he must accept upon faith and belief.

Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being.