When I saw the head divided from the body, and heard the sound with which they fell separately into the box, I understood, not with my reason, but with my whole being, that no theory of the wisdom of all established things, nor of progress, could justify such an act and that if all the men in the world from the day of creation, by whatever theory, had found this thing necessary, it was not so; it was a bad thing, and that therefore I must judge of what was right and necessary, not by what men said and did, not by progress, but what I felt to be true in my heart.

Before occupying myself with my estate, with the education of my son, with the writing of books, I was bound to know why I did these things. Till I know the reasons for my own acts, I can do nothing, I cannot live.

The unhappy man dares not get out for fear of the wild beast, and dares not descend for fear of the dragon, so he catches hold of the branch of a wild plant growing in a crevice of the well.

I found that with respect to this question all human knowledge may be divided into two opposite hemispheres, with their respective poles, the one negative, the other affirmative, but that at neither end is to be found an answer to the problem of life.

The less it had to do with these questions, the clearer and more exact it was; the more it took the character of a solution of these questions, the obscurer and less attractive they, became.

Philosophy cannot answer; it can only itself put the same question.

Consequently, what remains to us after the annihilation of will, except will again, is assuredly nothing;

A wise man seeks death all his life, and death has no terrors for him.

Thus my wanderings over the fields of knowledge not only failed to cure me of my despair, but increased it.

The third means of escape is through strength and energy of character. … Only men of strong and unswerving character act thus.

I understood this, but still did not kill myself. … I now see that I did not kill myself because I had, in a confused sort of way, inkling that my ideas were wrong.

How can it be that reason denies life, and is at the same time its creator? … I felt that something here was wrong.

I knew that from the knowledge which reason has given man, I could get nothing but the denial of life, and from faith nothing but the denial of reason, which last was even more impossible than the denial of life.

Whatever answers any kind of faith ever gives to anyone, every one of these answers clothes with infinity the finite existence of man, gives a meaning to life which triumphs over suffering, privation, and death. … In faith, therefore, alone is found a possibility of living and a meaning in life.

In contradiction to the theory that the less learned we are the less we understand the meaning of life, and see in our sufferings and death but an evil joke, these men of the people live, suffer, and draw near to death, in quiet confidence and oftenest with joy.

I became convinced that a true faith was among them, that their faith was for them a necessary thing, and alone gave them a meaning in life and a possibility of living.

I understood that I had erred, and how I had erred. I had erred, not so much through having thought incorrectly, as through having lived ill.

I forget altogether in what direction I started, and abandon my oars.

I renounced the life of my own class, for I had come to confess that it was not a real life, only the semblance of one, that its superfluous luxury prevented the possibility of understanding life, and that in order to do so I must know, not an exceptional parasitic life, but the simple life of the working-classes, the life which fashions that of the world, and gives it the meaning which the working-classes accept.

Now, on the contrary, I knew for certain that my life had not and could not have any meaning, and that the propositions of faith, not only appeared no longer useless to me, but had been shown beyond dispute by my own experience to be that which alone gave a meaning to life.

I did not then see that union through love may develop love to the highest degree, but can never give the truth that comes from God, as stated in the words of the Nicene Creed – that love can never make any particular form of creed binding on all believers.

I felt a sharp pain at the heart; it was no unconsidered word, it was the hard demand of one who could never have known what faith was.

I wished to understand so that every unexplained proposition should appear to my reason necessarily unexplainable, and not an obligatory part of belief.

I stop looking, but not to look is still worse, for then I think of what will at once happen to me when the last cord breaks. I feel that I am losing in my terror the last remnant of my strength, and that my back is gradually sinking lower and lower.

I perceive that I no longer hang nor fall, but have a fast hold. I question myself how it is that I hold on.

I remember all that has happened – how I moved my legs, how I was left hanging in air, how I was terrified, and how I was saved from my fears by looking above.

From this pillar runs a cord, somehow cunningly and simply fixed, and if I lie across this cord and look upwards, there cannot be even a question of my falling.