The Zürau Aphorisms

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked upon.

All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.

There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise; it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.

One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will only in time come to hate.

A cage went in search of a bird.

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.