"Fixed ideas are like a cramp in your foot: the best remedy is to stomp on them."

"The majority of the people are not so afraid of holding a wrong opinion, as they are of holding an opinion alone."

"The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable—whether given or chosen—and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees."

"When Christianity entered into the world, people were not Christians, and the difficulty was to become a Christian. Nowadays the difficulty in becoming a Christian is that one must cease to become a Christian."

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

"Cowardice wants only to concern itself with the really important, big things . . . to be flattered by doing something that is noble and great. Yet hiding behind the exalted is nothing but an excuse for not conquering all the little things."

"For the one who struggled with the world became great by overcoming the world, and the one who struggled with himself became greater by overcoming himself, but the one who struggled with God became greater than all."

​"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."

"Showing that they don’t care about me, or caring that I should know they don’t care about me, still denotes dependence… They show me respect precisely by showing me that they don’t respect me."

"A self is the last thing the world cares about and the most dangerous thing of all for a person to show signs of having. The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed."

"Oh blessed simplicity, that seizes swiftly what cleverness, tired out in the service of vanity, may grasp but slowly."