What Copernicus really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory but of a fertile new point of view.

If anyone is unwilling to descend into himself, because this is too painful, he will remain superficial in his writing. . . If I perform to myself, then it’s this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit.

The eternal life is given to those who live in the present.

I am still at Trattenbach, surrounded, as ever, by odiousness and baseness. I know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere, but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere.

Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?!

Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything.

We find certains things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.