It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.

It is human self-renunciation when a man denies himself and the world opens up to him. But it is Christian self-renunciation when he denies himself and, because the world precisely for this shuts itself up to him, he must as one thrust out by the world seek God's confidence. The double-danger lies precisely in meeting opposition there where he had expected to find support, and he has to turn about twice; whereas the merely human self-resignation turns once.

Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake?

With the daguerreotype, everyone will be able to have their portrait taken . . . and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same.

The Bible is God's love letter to us

...even the richest personality is nothing before he has chosen himself, and on the other hand even what one might call the poorest personality is everything when he has chosen himself; for the great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself, and this everyone can be if he wills it.

I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius.