“All the fruit is ripe, plunged in fire, cooked,And they have passed their test on earth, and one law is this:That everything curls inward, like snakes,Prophetic, dreaming onThe hills of heaven. And many thingsHave to stay on the shoulders like a loadof failure. However the roadsAre bad. For the chained elements,Like horses, are going off to the side,And the oldLaws of the earth. And a longingFor disintegration constantly comes. Many things howeverHave to stay on the shoulders. Steadiness is essential.Forwards, however, or backwards we willNot look. Let us learn to live swayingAs in a rocking boat on the sea.”

“Holy spirits, you walk up there in the light, on soft earth. Shining god-like breezes touch upon you gently, as a woman's fingers play music on holy strings.Like sleeping infants the gods breathe without any plan; the spirit flourishes continually in them, chastely kept, as in a small bud, and their holy eyes look out in still eternal clearness.A place to rest isn't given to us. Suffering humans decline and blindly fall from one hour to the next, like water thrown from cliff to cliff, year after year, down into the Unknown.”

“when i was a boya god often rescued mefrom the shouts and the rods of menand i played among trees and flowerssecure in their kindnessand the breezes of heavenwere playing there too.and as you delightthe hearts of plantswhen they stretch towards youwith little strengthso you delighted the heart in mefather Helios, and like Endymioni was your favourite,Moon. o allyou friendlyand faithful godsi wish you could knowhow my soul has loved you.even though when i called to you thenit was not yet with names, and younever named me as people doas though they knew one anotheri knew you betterthan i have ever known them.i understood the stillness above the skybut never the words of men.trees were my teachersmelodious treesand i learned to loveamong flowers.i grew up in the arms of the gods.”

“You have a head and a heart? Reveal only one of them, I say; If you reveal both at once, doubly they'll damn you, for both.”

“Alles prüfe der Mensch,dass er Danken für alles lerntund verstehe die Freiheit,aufzubrechen, wohin er will.”

“There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing.”

“But where the danger is, also grows the saving power.”