Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.

Worship isn't God's show. God is the audience. God's watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.

Knowledge of the truth I may perhaps have attained to; happiness certainly not. What shall I do? Accomplish something in the world, men tell me. Shall I then publish my grief to the world, contribute one more proof for the wretchedness and misery of existence, perhaps discover a new flaw in human life, hitherto unnoticed? I might then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I prefer, however, to keep silent.

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.

What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement.

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic - if it is pulled out I shall die.

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