They should not clench their fists,it’s my longing that’s drawing me near to them;they should not stand there full of rage,my longing is timidly drawing near to them;they should not be ready to pounce like...

God goes with thoughtless people.

Ah, I believe Schacht. Only too willingly; that’s to say, I think what he says is absolutely true, for the world is incomprehensibly crass, tyrannical, moody, and cruel to sickly and sensitive people. Well, Schacht...

On the whole I consider the constant need for delight and diversion in completely new things to be a sign of pettiness, lack of inner life, of estrangement from nature, and of a mediocre or...

Perhaps there were a few repetitions here and there. But I would like to confess that I consider nature and human life to be a lovely and charming flow of fleeting repetitions, and I would...

So you, too, like fruitcake? (RW on meeting Lenin in Zurich during World War I.)

With the utmost love and attention the man who walks must study and observe every smallest living thing, be it a child, a dog, a fly, a butterfly, a sparrow, a worm, a flower, a...

After a spent day, Iwalked back in a fever.The whole way homethe sun touched my cheeks.The blissful evening glowspread across the meadowsand I called this lightthe blood I shed.My hot burning blood layconsoling the entire...

I’d like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it’s quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but...

I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself.

I feel how little it concerns me, everything that’s called “the world,” and how grand and exciting what I privately call the world is to me.

Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I’m not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway!…You have been my body’s health....

My cheeks are red hot,my lip still trembles,because I sent my heartto speak; every word of itdelusional and awkward,an exuberance, an abrupt sound.That’s how I spoke, oh, it stillshows on my hot cheeksI’m now carrying...

The barber’s assistant asks if I am a Swede. An American? Not that either. A Russian? Well, then, what are you? I love to answer such nationalistically tinted questions with a steely silence, and to...

The soul of the world had opened and I fantasized that everything wicked, distressing and painful was on the point of vanishing…all notion of the future paled and the past dissolved. In the glowing present,...

You do see me crossing the meadowstiff and dead from the mist?I long for that home,that home I’ve never had,and without any hopethat I’ll ever be able to reach it.For such a home, never touched,I...

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a...

The best-trained part of us, though, is the mouth, it �is always obediently and devoutly shut. And it’s only too true: an open mouth is a yawning fact, the fact that its owner is dwelling...

,Seria correcto decir que el viento caminaba? No era una figura ni tenia piernas. Yo no lo veia, sólo lo percibia gracias a la sensación, es decir lo notaba y lo dejaba actuar sobre mi....

Curious, the pleasure it gives me to annoy practitioners of force. Do I actually want this Herr Benjamenta to punish me? Do I have reckless instincts? Everything is possible, everything, even the most sordid and...

I don’t want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to...

And the pine trees that smell so wonderfully of spicy power. Shall I never see a mountain pine again? Really that would be no misfortune. To forgo something: that also has its fragrance and its...

That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles.

How small life is hereand how big nothingness.The sky, tired of light,has given everything to the snow.The two trees bowtheir heads to each other.Clouds cross the world’ssilence in a circle dance