At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.

Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world. Most people hardly ever realize this, because it is rare that the very same man thinks and puts his thought into action.

Love is not consolation, it is light.

We should do only those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing.

One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale.