All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

Separate religion from morality, and you have the true energy for evil within man, the terrible, cruel, devastating, and inhuman principle which naturally lies in his spirit. Here the division of the indivisible punishes itself most awfully.

The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.

The need to raise itself above humanity is humanity's main characteristic.

The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.

An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.