In actuality, no one ever sank so deep that he could not sink deeper, and there may be one or many who sank deeper. So it is always possible to be happy and grateful that things are not worse!

If a man wants to set up as an innkeeper and he does not succeed, it is not comic. If, on the contrary, a girl asks to be allowed to set up as a prostitute and she fails, as sometimes happens, it is comic.

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.

Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.

The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!