I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

The truth is a trap: you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.

Comparison is the most dangerous acquaintance love can make.

My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.

Irony is a qualification of subjectivity.

Every human being is tried this way in the active service of expectancy. Now comes the fulfillment and relieves him, but soon he is again placed on reconnaissance for expectancy; then he is again relieved, but as long as there is any future for him, he has not yet finished his service. And while human life goes on this way in very diverse expectancy, expecting very different things according to different times and occasions and in different frames of mind, all life is again one nightwatch of expectancy.