People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

Don't forget to love yourself.

There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.

It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.

Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and weather, altogether incalculable.

Once you label me you negate me.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.