The whole life-effort of man is to get his life into direct contact with the elemental life of the cosmos, mountain life, cloud life, thunder life, air life, earth life, sun life. To come into immediate felt contact, and so derive energy, power and a dark sort of joy. This effort into sheer naked contact, without an intermediary or mediator is the root meaning of religion.

But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don’t trust anybody with your real emotions: if you’ve got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never with your feelings. They are bound to trample on them.

It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance.

The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.

A snake came to my water trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pajamas for the heat, To drink there.

An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.

I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?