Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the earth, seems irrevocable.

Our deepest fears are like dragons, guarding our deepest treasure.

Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant.

But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is-solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves.

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.

You must think that something is happening upon you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.

O trees of life, O when are you wintering?We are not unified. We have no instinctslike those of migratory birds. Useless, and late,we force ourselves, suddenly, onto the wind,and fall down to an indifferent lake.We realise flowering and fading together.And somewhere lions still roam. Never knowing,as long as they have their splendour, of any weakness.