"It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

"For a truly religious man nothing is tragic."

"If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud."

"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."

"Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open."

"Philosophy hasn't made any progress?—If someone scratches where it itches, do we have to see progress? Is it not genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching?"

"One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way."

"The Sabbath is not simply a time to rest, to recuperate. We should look at our work from the outside, not just from within."

"Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: “Let’s have done with it now,” and it's having constantly to go on thinking in the face of this need when philosophizing that makes this work so strenuous."

"If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained."

"Nothing is more important than the formation of fictional concepts, which teach us at last to understand our own."

"I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)"

"Ambition is the death of thought."

"Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness."

"It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems."

"Schiller writes in a letter [to Goethe, 17 December 1795] of a ‘poetic mood’. I think I know what he means, I think I am familiar with it myself. It is the mood of receptivity to nature and one in which one's thoughts seem as vivid as nature itself."

"Is it just I who cannot found a school, or can a philosopher never do so?"

"Animals come when their names are called. Just like human beings."

"Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie."

"If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty."

"You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. ... And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage."

"One might say: art shows us the miracles of nature. It is based on the concept of the miracles of nature."

"Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense."

"I am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around."

"Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice. (Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of an illness."

"I never believed in God before." — that I understand. But not: "I never really believed in Him before."

"Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be."

"Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion."

"I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)"

"If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us."

"You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage."

""Fare well!" "A whole world of pain is contained in these words." How can it be contained in them? — It is bound up in them. The words are like an acorn from which an oak tree can grow."

"The less somebody knows and understands himself the less great he is, however great may be his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great."

"A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean being able to act the part of a hero well, as in the theatre, it means being able to look death itself in the eye. For an actor may play lots of different roles, but at the end of it all he himself, the human being, is the one who has to die."

"The way you use the word "God" does not show whom you mean — but, rather, what you mean."

"The purely corporeal can be uncanny. Compare the way angels and devils are portrayed. So-called "miracles" must be connected with this. A miracle must be, as it were, a sacred gesture."

"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."

"If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings."

"Worte sind Taten."

"You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth."

"It is not by recognizing the want of courage in someone else that you acquire courage yourself.."

"Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree."

"A philosopher is a man who has to cure many intellectual diseases in himself before he can arrive at the notions of common sense."

"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it."

"The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness, and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness."

"There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man—but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point."

"In Rennen der Philosophie gewinnt, wer am langsamsten laufen kann. Oder: der, der das Ziel zuletzt erreicht."

"Our greatest stupidities may be very wise."

"Aim at being loved without being admired."

"Man könnte sagen: „Genie ist Mut im Talent.”"