“When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.”

Just improve yourself; that is the only thing you can do to better the world.

That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.

Religion as madness is a madness springing from irreligiousness.

When we can’t think for ourselves, we can always quote.

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.

It’s not how the world is, but that it is, that is cause for astonishment.

Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything.

If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.

At the core of all well-founded beliefs lies belief that is unfounded.

Nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.

I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.

How small a thought it takes to fill a life.

Music conveys to us itself!

Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.

Ideas too sometimes fall from the tree before they are ripe.

What can be shown, cannot be said.

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.

I feel something troubling inside of me which scares me, an exhausting violence. But I accept the great adventure of being me.

That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.

But it is impossible for anyone to say ‘I am sacrificing myself’ without feeling bitterness.

There’s something tragic about you. Your feeling for the absolute. You were made to believe in God and spend your life in a convent.

I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can’t beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I must marry it.

To know that there’s a good chance that this is something that could potentially be around well after I leave this planet, it’s a good feeling.