Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

It wasn't his, it wasn't my fault, we both had nothing except patience, but Death has none. I saw him come (how meanly!) and I watched him as he took and took: none of it I could claim as mine.

What we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us.

Nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters.

And when suddenly the god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry, uttered the words: ‘He has turned round’ – she comprehended nothing and said softly: ‘Who?

This above all-ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.