“If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.”

“Father! Whom I do not know! Father! who filled all my soul and who has now turned His countenance away from me! Call me to You! Be silent no longer! Your silence will not stay this thirsting soul—and could a person, a father, be angry whose son, unexpectedly returning, threw himself on his neck and cried: Father! I have come back! Don’t be angry that I am breaking off the travels that you meant for me to endure longer. The world is everywhere the same, in effort and work, reward and joy, but what is that to me? I am only happy where you are, and it is before your countenance that I want to suffer and enjoy.—And You, dear heavenly Father, would turn him away from You?”

“I thank you, Wilhelm, for your heartfelt sympathy, for your well-intentioned advice, but beg you to be quiet. Let me stick it out. Blessedly exhausted as I am, I have strength enough to carry through. I honor religion, you know that, I feel it is a staff for many weary souls, refreshment for many a one who is pining away. But--can it be, must it be, the same thing for everyone? If you look at the great world, you see thousands for whom it wasn't, thousands for whom it will not be the same, preached or unpreached, and must it then be the same for me? Does not the son of God Himself say that those would be around Him whom the Father had given Him? But if I am not given? If the Father wants to keep me for Himself, as my heart tells me?--I beg you, do not misinterpret this, do not see mockery in these innocent words. What I am laying before you is my whole soul; otherwise I would rather have kept silent, as I do not like to lose words over things that everyone knows as little about as I do. What else is it but human destiny to suffer out one's measure, drink up one's cup?--And if the chalice was too bitter for the God from heaven on His human lips, why should I boast and pretend that it tastes sweet to me? And why should I be ashamed in the terrible moment when my entire being trembles between being and nothingness, since the past flashes like lightning above the dark abyss of the future and everything around me is swallowed up, and the world perishes with me?--Is that not the voice of the creature thrown back on itself, failing, trapped, lost, and inexorably tumbling downward, the voice groaning in the inner depths of its vainly upwards-struggling energies: My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? And if I should be ashamed of the expression, should I be afraid when facing that moment, since it did not escape Him who rolls up heaven like a carpet?”

“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”

“Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,because the mass man will mock it right away.I praise what is truly alive,what longs to be burned to death.In the calm water of the love-nights,where you were begotten, where you have begotten,a strange feeling comes over you,when you see the silent candle burning.Now you are no longer caughtin the obsession with darkness,and a desire for higher love-makingsweeps you upward.Distance does not make you falter.Now, arriving in magic, flying,and finally, insane for the light,you are the butterfly and you are gone.And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,you are only a troubled gueston the dark earth.”

“What is uttered from the heart alone will win the heart of others to your own.”

“Medicine, and Law, and Philosophy -You've worked your way through every school,Even, God help you, Theology,And sweated at it like a fool.Why labour at it any more?You're no wiser now than you were before.You're Master of Arts, and Doctor too,And for ten years all you've been able to doIs lead your students a fearful danceThrough a maze of error and ignorance.And all this misery goes to showThere's nothing we can ever know.Oh yes you're brighter than all those relics,Professors and Doctors, scribblers and clerics,No doubts or scruples to trouble you,Defying hell, and the Devil too.But there's no joy in self-delusion;Your search for truth ends in confusion.Don't imagine your teaching will ever raiseThe minds of men or change their ways.And as for worldly wealth, you have none -What honour or glory have you won?A dog could stand this life no more.And so I've turned to magic lore;The spirit message of this art Some secret knowledge might impart.No longer shall I sweat to teach What always lay beyond my reach;I'll know what makes the world revolve,Its mysteries resolve,No more in empty words I'll deal -Creation's wellsprings I'll reveal!”