“Many books are longer than they seem. They have indeed no end. The boredom that they cause is truly absolute and infinite.”

Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.

One should, when overwhelmed by the shadow of a giant, move aside and see if the colossal shadow isn’t merely that of a pygmy blocking out the sun.

Man has his being in truth–if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying–but of acting against one’s conviction.

Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?

Everything at a distance turns into poetry; distant mountains, distant people, distant events; all become Romantic.

Our bodies are molded rivers.

Where are we really going? Always home.

Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things.

Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution.

The ideal of morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of highest strength, of most powerful life. It is the maximum of the savage.

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.

The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an actual world in miniature.

Nature is a petrified magic city.

The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, the symbol of youth, and ends with the everlasting kingdom, with the holy city. The history of every man should be a Bible.

Play is experimenting with chance.

Character is a wish for a perfect education.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Fatherhood is the best thing I ever did. It changes your perspective. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I have taken on.

So I be written in the Book of Love. I do not care about that Book Above. Erase my name, or write it as you will. So I be written in the Book of Love.

We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.

A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.

I had a friend who worked at a hospice, and he said people in their final moments don’t discuss their successes, awards or what books they wrote or what they accomplished. They only talk about their loves and their regrets, and I think that’s very telling.

The Bible contains some of the most sublime passages in English literature, but is also full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities.

The church that preaches the gospel in all of its fullness, except as it applies to the great social ills of the day, is failing to preach the gospel.