If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.
All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.
Whoever commits to paper what he suffers becomes a melancholy author: but he becomes a serious author when he tells us what he suffered and why he now reposes in joy.
For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape-regarding Christians, a well known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment.
Every true faith is infallible. It performs what the believing person hopes to find in it. But it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth. Here the ways of men divide. If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search.
We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge - and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves - how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves? It has rightly been said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"; our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are.
We laugh at a man who, stepping out of his room at the very minute when the sun is rising, says, “It is my will that the sun shall rise”; or at him who, unable to stop a wheel, says, “I wish it to roll”; or, again, at him who, thrown in a wrestling match, says, “Here I lie, but here I wish to lie.” But, joking apart, do we not act like one of these three persons whenever we use the expression “I wish”?
Desire is happiness: satisfaction as happiness is merely the ultimate moment of desire. To be wish and wish alone is happiness, and a new wish over and over again.