In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other.

Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.

Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.

The bourgeois today burns as heretics and hangs as criminals those to whom he erects monuments tomorrow.

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.

The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation andsecurity. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.

I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.