“Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what has fallen into their depths.”

“[I]n nooks all over the earth sit men who are waiting, scarcely knowing in what way they are waiting, much less that they are waiting in vain. Occasionally the call that awakens– that accident which gives the “permission to act — comes too late, when the best youth and strength for action has already been used up by sitting still; and many have found to their horror when they ‘leaped up’ that their limbs had gone to sleep and their spirit had become to heavy. ‘It is too late,’ they said to themselves, having lost their faith in themselves and henceforth forever useless.”

“My dear friend, what is this our life? A boat that swims in the sea, and all one knows for certain about it is that one day it will capsize. Here we are, two good old boats that have been faithful neighbors, and above all your hand has done its best to keep me from "capsizing"! Let us then continue our voyage—each for the other's sake, for a long time yet, a long time! We should miss each other so much! Tolerably calm seas and good winds and above all sun—what I wish for myself, I wish for you, too, and am sorry that my gratitude can find expression only in such a wish and has no influence at all on wind or weather!”

“No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.”

“I attack only things that are triumphant — if necessary, I wait until they become triumphant.”

“You force all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love.”

“Only when he has attained a final knowledge of all things will man have come to know himself. For things are only the boundaries of man.”