How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?

Why don't you think of [God] as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity... the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are.

I am so afraid of people's words.They describe so distinctly everything: And this they call dog and that they call house, here the start and there the end. I worry about their mockery with words, they know everything, what will be, what was; no mountain is still miraculous; and their house and yard lead right up to God. I want to warn and object: Let the things be! I enjoy listening to the sound they are making. But you always touch: and they hush and stand still. That's how you kill.

Fate loves to invent patterns and designs. Its difficulty lies in complexity. But life itself is difficult because of its simplicity. It has only a few things of a grandeur not fit for us.

It is good to say it aloud: 'Nothing has happened.' Once again: 'Nothing has happened.' Does that help?"

Most people have turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it.

Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.