“Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!”

As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others.

So I be written in the Book of Love. I do not care about that Book Above. Erase my name, or write it as you will. So I be written in the Book of Love.

A hair divides what is false and true.

The secret must be kept from all non-people. The mystery must be hidden from all idiots.

Think not I dread to see my spirit fly, Through the dark gates of fell mortality; Death has no terrors when the life is true; ‘Tis living ill that makes us fear to die.

Drink! for you know not when you came, nor why; Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!

He who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

We are in truth but pieces on this chess board of life, which in the end we leave, only to drop one by one into the grave of nothingness.

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long, have done my credit in this World much wrong; have drowned my Glory in a shallow Cup, and sold my Reputation for a Song.

Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Living Life Tomorrow’s fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.

When you are so full of sorrow that you can’t walk, can’t cry anymore, think about the green foliage that sparkles after the rain. When the daylight exhausts you, when you hope a final night will cover the world, think about the awakening of a young child.

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help-for it As impotently moves as you or I

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music.

Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

The past of the soul is so distant! The soul does not live on the edge of time. It finds its rest in the universe imagined by reverie.

The road before us is shorter than the road behind.

When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.

To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves.

I take a sun bath and listen to the hours, formulating, and disintegrating under the pines, and smell the resiny hardihood of the high noon hours. The world is lost in a blue haze of distances, and the immediate sleeps in a thin and finite sun.

Everything at a distance turns into poetry; distant mountains, distant people, distant events; all become Romantic.