Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don’t have far to go, either.
No matter how often you knock at nature’s door, she won’t answer in words you can understand–for Nature is dumb. She’ll vibrate and moan like a violin, but you mustn’t expect a song.
Love isn’t actually a feeling at all–it’s an illness, a certain condition of body and soul…. Usually it takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will–just like cholera or a fever.
Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly.
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
What did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
