It is an end with priests and gods, if man becomes scientific. Moral: science is the thing forbidden in itself - it alone is forbidden. Science is the first sin, the germ of all sin, original sin. This alones is mortality: Thou shalt not know.
People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.
On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection - most dreams are bungled - the are symbolic chains of scene and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed when we remember our dreams.
Has there ever been anything filthier on earth than the saints in the wilderness? Around them was not only the devil loose around them- but also the swine.
Those are my enemies: they want to overthrow and to construct nothing themselves. They say: "All that is worthless"--and want to create no value themselves.
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind.
When we dream about those who are long since forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have undergone a radical transformation and that the ground on which we live has been completely dug up: then the dead rise up, and our antiquity becomes modernity.