Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person.

Hope is passion for what is possible.

If anyone proposes to believe, i.e., imagines himself to believe, because many good and upright people living here on the hill have believed, i.e., have said that they believedthen he is a fool, and it is essentially indifferent whether he believes on account of his own and perhaps a widely held opinion about what good and upright people believe, or believes a Münchhausen.

Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us - but not suckle us.

To love another person is to help them love God.

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

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