(...)One only fear still needs repeating:
The art is long, the time is fleeting.
Then let thyself be taught, say I!
Go, league thyself with a poet,
Give the rein to his imagination,
Then wear the crown, and show it,
Of the qualities of his creation,—
The courage of the lion's breed,
The wild stag's speed,
The Italian's fiery blood,
The North's firm fortitude!
Let him find for thee the secret tether
That binds the Noble and Mean together.
And teach thy pulses of youth and pleasure
To love by rule, and hate by measure!
I'd like, myself, such a one to see:
Sir Microcosm his name should be.(..)
What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say
"This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh - everything unspeakably small and great in your life - must come again to you, and in the same sequence and series...". Would you not throw yourself down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him : "Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
One of the first proofs of self - mastery is when one shows that he can be kind and forbearing and genial with companions of the most dissimilar characters and temperaments.
And of the strongest signs of retrogression when one shows that he expects others to like what he likes and act as he acts
To be a poet is to be taller, to be bigger
Than average men! It is to bite as if you’re kissing!
It is to give alms, although you are a beggar,
Like the king of a realm where only pain is missing!
................................
It is to have inside yourself a flaming star,
To have the condor's mighty claw and wing!
