“Out of infinite longings risefinite deeds like weak fountains,falling back just in time and trembling.And yet, what otherwise remains silent,our happy energies—show themselvesin these dancing tears.”

“Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.”

“And we, spectators always, everywhere,looking at, never out of, everything!It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses.We re-arrange it, and collapse ourselves.Who's turned us round like this, so that we always,do what we may, retain the attitudeof someone who's departing? Just as he,on the last hill, that shows him all his valleyfor the last time, will turn and stop and linger,we live our lives, for ever taking leave.”

“SENSE OF SOMETHING COMING: I am like a flag in the center of open space.I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must liveit through.while the things of the world still do not move:the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are fullof silence,the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down.I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.I leap out, and fall back,and throw myself out, and am absolutely alonein the great storm.”

“We can so easily slip back from what we have struggled to attain, abruptly, into a life we never wanted; can find that we are trapped, as in a dream, and die there, without ever waking up. This can occur. Anyone who has lifted his blood into a years-long work may find that he can't sustain it, the force of gravity is irresistible, and it falls back, worthless. For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work.”

“FALLING STARS: Do you remember still the falling starsthat like swift horses through the heavens racedand suddenly leaped across the hurdlesof our wishes -- do you recall? And wedid make so many! For there were countless numbersof stars: each time we looked above we wereastounded by the swiftness of their daring play,while in our hearts we felt safe and securewatching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,knowing somehow we had survived their fall.”

“Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divinings, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.”