“My soul is calm and clear, like the mountains in the morning. But they think I am cold, and a mocker with terrible jests.”

“I consist of body and soul - in the worlds of a child. And why shouldn't we speak like children? But the enlightened, the knowledgealbe would say: I am body through and through, nothing more; and the soul is just a word for something on the body.”

“And must I not conceal myself like one who has swallowed gold- lest my soul should be ripped up?”

“The awakened and knowing say: body I am entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.”

“Interpreting myself, I always readMyself into my books. I clearly needSome help. But all who climb on their own wayCarry my image, too, into the breaking day.”

“I am one thing, my writings are another.”

“You know these things as thoughts, but your thoughts are not your experiences, they are an echo and after-effect of your experiences: as when your room trembles when a carriage goes past. I however am sitting in the carriage, and often I am the carriage itself.Ina man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.”