“When I picture a perfect reader, I always picture a monster of courage and curiosity, also something supple, cunning, cautious, a born adventurer and discoverer”

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you”

“Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers.He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers--and spirit itself will stink.Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking.Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace.He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart.In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to should be big and tall.The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of a joyful wickedness: thus are things well matched.I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins--it wanteth to laugh.”

“The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence.”

“If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn”

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

“The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you.”