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.
That is how things stand today, little likely to cause me any uneasiness.
Knowledge must seep into your blood, into your self, not just into your head, you must live it.
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.
Books are a narcotic.
We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book weβre reading doesnβt wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?
Ein Buch muΓ die Axt sein fΓΌr das gefrorene Meer in uns.
The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.
Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.
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.
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.
A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.
Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.
