We sit inert, like dead specimens of some museum, while lessons are pelted at us from on high, like hailstones on flowers.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

Repentance is a gift of God's grace.

If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door- or i'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.

Other animals ran only when they had a reason, but the horse would run for no reason whatever, as if to run out of his own skin

If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower.

For man is by nature an artist.