One should, when overwhelmed by the shadow of a giant, move aside and see if the colossal shadow isn't merely that of a pygmy blocking out the sun.

The world must become romanticized, and in that way we find again its original meaning for us.

What delights, what pleasures does your life offer you that outweigh the raptures of death?

Life is the beginning of death. Life is for the sake of death. Death is at once the end and the beginning—at once separation and closer union of the self. Through death the reduction is complete.

Humanity is a comic role.

Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.

To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.