In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: ‘Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life’.

We have no hope and yet we live in longing.

If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

The path to paradise begins in hell.

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the universe, and is resplendent in one part more and in another less.

And when he had put his hand on mine with a cheerful look, wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within to the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes.