Quote collection
496 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"...he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who has faith, retains eternal youth."
"No grand inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety and no spy knows how to attack more artfully the man he suspects, choosing the instant when he is weakest; nor knows how to lay traps where he will be caught and ensnared as anxiety knows how, and no sharp-witted judge knows how to interrogate, to examine the accused, as anxiety does, which never lets him escape."
"What our age lacks is not reflection, but passion."
"Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair. The emphasis is on before God, or with a conception of God; it is the conception of God that makes sin dialectically, ethically, and religiously what lawyers call 'aggravated' despair."
"The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic. It is only by the deepest suffering that one acquires true authority in the use of the comic, an authority which by one word transforms as by magic the reasonable creature one calls man into a caricature."
"Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm and shrewdly relapsing into repose."
"At one time my only wish was to be a police official. It seemed to me to be an occupation for my sleepless intriguing mind. I had the idea that there, among criminals, were people to fight: clever, vigorous, crafty fellows. Later I realized that it was good that I did not become one, for most police cases involve misery and wretchedness-not crimes and scandals."
"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."
"...the reason for [this age's] anxiety and unrest is because in one direction, 'truth' increases in scope and quantity - via science and technology - while in the other, certainty and confidence steadily decline. Our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good."
"Who is also aware of the tremendous risk involved in faith - when he nevertheless makes the leap of faith - this [is] subjectivity ... at its height."
"Spirit is the third, yet in such a way that one can speak of a synthesis only when the spirit is posited."
"Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances."
"Ulysses was not comely, but he was eloquent, Yet he fired two goddesses of the sea with love"
"It doesn't occur to me at this moment to say more; another time, perhaps tomorrow, I may have more to say, but always the same thing and about the same, for only gypsies, robber gangs and swindlers follow the adage that where a person has once been he is never to go again."
"Pleasure disappoints; possibility never."
"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."
"If a man cannot forget, he will never amount to much."
"Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!"
"It takes moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice."
"With respect to love we speak continually about perfection and the perfect person. With respect to love Christianity also speaks continually about perfection and the perfect person. Alas, but we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees."