In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.

If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.

The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it.

The more men believe an idea to be true the greater the likelihood that the idea is mistaken. Those who are right usually stand alone.

It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, "No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer."

It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.