Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.
Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.
Books are a narcotic.
One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.
Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
Dread of night. Dread of not-night.
Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects.
Love is, that you are the knife which I plunge into myself.
I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man.
I need solitude for my writing; not ‘like a hermit’ – that wouldn’t be enough – but like a dead man.
The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.
Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.
One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.
He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.
What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.
I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.
It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you.
I’m doing badly, I’m doing well; whichever you prefer.
Written kisses don’t reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.