Spirit (n.) is the self which is a relation, or rather a relation's-relating itself-to-itself.
Spirit (n.) withdrawing from the world frees the sensuous: the flesh rejoices that the Church cannot keep the two together, and the whole world becomes a sounding-board for it.
Spirit (n.) cannot be expressed immediately: the cloister too is only an immediate expression; the man for whom every direct expression is a falsum remains a hermit though he rides day and night in an omnibus.
Spirit (n.) must burn in the erotic without consuming it — the difficulty once God is thought as spirit is that the physico-psychical synthesis of Eros vanishes from sight.
Spirit (n.) admits no barber: he who cannot shave himself may hire others for his beard, but in the world of spirit every man is essentially thrown back upon himself.
Spirit (n.) is burning without blazing.
Spirit (n.) has a strength that, unlike physical strength, must be overstrained — overexert the body and you are injured, but unless you exert the spirit to its limit you never discover, in the deeper sense, that God exists.
Spirit (n.) is the imperishable that holds up the perishable; take it away and the body may keep performing its functions for a while — comically and tragically at once.
Spirit (n.) has a world not subject to vanity: once you have found the tree, it blooms perpetually.
Spirit (n.) will not let itself be mocked; it revenges itself by binding the mocker with the chain of melancholy.
Spirit (n.) is dreaming in man in his innocence.
Spirit (n.) is at once a hostile power that keeps disturbing the bond of soul and body, and a friendly power whose very function is to constitute that bond.
Spirit (n.) has a secret: it has a history — and that history stamps itself on a face.
Spirit (n.) has only one proof: the spirit's proof within oneself; whoever demands another may get proofs in abundance, but is already marked as spiritless.
Spirit (n.) is the one creditor who never came off badly; a debtor may slip away from others with talk, but not from him.
Spirit (n.) is the world where only the worker gets bread, only the anguished find rest, and only the one who draws the knife gets Isaac.
Spirit (n.) is the one place people think they can skip the positions and start straight with the French dances.
Spirit (n.) fools no one in its world but him who fools himself.
Spirit (n.) is man's invisible glory.
Spirit (n.) is frightful torture in a child or youth: the others play, flirt and dance, and one is a spirit.