It is good to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures and wealth are not good things, I learned even as a child. I knew it for a long time, but only now have I experienced it.

A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone.

What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world.

madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom

Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike.

As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage, so every virtue, so our grasp of truth blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age, be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavour, be ready bravely and without remorse to find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.

In every truth, the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is onesided.