At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
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.
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
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.
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.
If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.
Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.
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.
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
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.
