If desire seizes directly upon its object, contemplation removes its object to a distance, and makes it into a true and inalienable possession by putting it beyond the reach of passion. — Friedrich von Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform December 10, 2015)
I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going. ― Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, (Harper Perennial; Reprint edition September 20, 2011)
Because I never held you close, I hold you forever. ― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Trans. & ed. Michale Hulse (Penguin Classics, 2009)
I love the one whose soul is overfull so that he forgets himself, and all things are in him; I love the one who has a free spirit and a free heart: thus his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart drives him to go under. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke… Continue reading Friedrich Nietzsche
It is vain futility to describe the way you smile; it is mere impossibility to speak at all when you are around. I don’t dare breathe. Keep smiling. I don’t dare move at all. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.; 2nd edition December 15, 1996)
But the constellation of his future love has long been moving among the stars. What terror will tear his heart out of the track of its fleeing to place it in perfect submission, under the calm influence of the heavens? —Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Duration of Childhood,” The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
You are the second one amidst your loneliness, the quiet center of each monologue: and any circle drawn round you exceeds the tent of time. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Book of the Monkish Life,” First Book; The Book of Hours: Prayers to a Lowly God, trans. Annemarie S. Kidder (Northwestern University Press, 2001)
