I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy.

I go fishing for a thousand monsters in the depths of my own self

At one time my only wish was to be a police official. It seemed to me to be an occupation for my sleepless intriguing mind. I had the idea that there, among criminals, were people to fight: clever, vigorous, crafty fellows. Later I realized that it was good that I did not become one, for most police cases involve misery and wretchedness-not crimes and scandals.

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.

Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice. . . but the voice of eternity within a person it cannot drown.

I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.