Whoever has the world's treasures has them no matter how he got them. In the world of the spirit it is otherwise.

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.

A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.

The resolving of the ethical, is freedom; the negative resolution also has this, but the freedom, blank and bare, is as if tongue-tied, hard to express, and generally has something hard in its nature. Falling in love, however, promptly sets it to music, even if this composition contains a very difficult passage.

As my prayer became more attentive and inward, I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent... This is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard.

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.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.