Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.
The way is infinitely long, nothing of it can be subtracted, nothing can be added, and yet everyone applies his own childish yardstick to it. Certainly, this yard of the way you still have to go, too, and it will be accounted unto you.
This is the antinomy: Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence.
The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.
'Conservation' (the conservation law) means this, that there is a number, which you can calculate, at one moment, and as nature undergoes its multitude of changes, this number doesn't change. That is, if you calculate again, this quantity, it'll be the same as it was before. An example is the conservation of energy: there's a quantity that you can calculate according to a certain rule, and it comes out the same answer after, no matter what happens, happens.
Mind can never be intelligent, only no-mind is intelligent. Only no-mind is original and radical. Only no-mind is revolutionary, revolution in action. This mind gives you a sort of stupor. Burdened by the memories of the past, burdened by the projections of the future, you go on living, at the minimum. You don't live at the maximum. Your flame remains very dim. Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises, clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.
Without the constantly living and articulated experience of absurdity, there would be no reason to attempt to do something meaningful. And on the contrary, how can one experience one's own absurdity if one is not constantly seeking meaning?
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.
A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation, for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason, but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly.
It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.