there is nothing bad to fear; once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak

The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

Dread of night. Dread of not-night.

Anyone who renounces the world must love all men, for he renounces their world too. He thus begins to have some inkling of the true nature of man, which cannot but be loved, always assuming that one is its peer.

In a way, I was safe writing

A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.