Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.
Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.
The artist stands on the human being as a statue does on a pedestal.
Humanity is the higher meaning of our planet, the nerve that connects this part of it with the upper world, the eye it raises to heaven.
How can a person have a sense of something if he does not have the germ of it within himself. What I am to understand must develop organically within me–and what I seem to learn is only nourishment–stimulation of the organism.
Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking–being awake–consciousness.
Genius in general is poetic. Where genius has been active it has been poetically active. The truly moral person is a poet.
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.
Many books are longer than they seem. They have indeed no end. The boredom that they cause is truly absolute and infinite.
Not only England but every Englishman is an island.
Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.
To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.
The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.