In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God.

God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves.

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

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.

To claim that theft or adultery or lying are "evil" simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity.