The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.
— Franz Kafka
Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.
We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.
The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.
The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.
One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.
There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.
Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.
Religions get lost as people do.
Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.
Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.
By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.
It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.
Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.
It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.
Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.
Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.
Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.
We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.
Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.
Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.
It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.
In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.
The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.
Dread of night. Dread of not-night.
Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.
One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.
In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.
He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.
Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.
The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.
If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?
There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.
Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.
The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.
Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.
Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.
One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.
Writers speak stench.
The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.
The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.
