The tragic and the comic are the same in as much as both are contradiction, but the tragic is suffering contradiction, and the comic is painless contradiction.

The self in despair is satisfied with paying attention to itself, which is supposed to bestow infinite interest and significance upon his enterprises, but it is precisely this that makes them imaginary constructions.

There is something unexplainable in depression [Tungsind]. A person with a sorrow or a worry knows why he sorrows or worries. If a depressed person is asked what the reason is, what it is that weighs [tynge] on him, he will answer: I do not know; I cannot explain it. Therein lies the limitlessness of depression.

Most people pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

What, then, is depression? It is hysteria of the spirit.

Repetition is actuality and the earnestness of existence. He who wills repetition is genuinely mature.

The dread of sin can sometimes in effect drive a person into sin through dread.

For I have trained myself and am training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought

He who does not grasp that life is repetition and that this is the beauty of life, has condemned himself and deserves nothing better than what will happen to him.

Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy.