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Beauty is only the start of bearable terror.

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If your love for […] wants to do something now, then its work and task is this: to catch up with what it has missed. For it has failed to see whither ...more

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…[S]uddenly your eye, which was already preparing itself for larger dimensions, goes about willingly with little, hesitating, hearkening steps over th...more

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Don't take my devils away, because my angels may flee too.

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Long you must suffer, knowing not what,until suddenly out of spitefully chewed fruit your suffering's taste comes forth in you.Then you will love almo...more

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She who reconciles the ill-matched threadsOf her life, and weaves them gratefullyInto a single cloth – It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hal...more

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Take your well-disciplined strengths, stretch them between the two great opposing poles, because inside human beings is where God learns.

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Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to y...more

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And you, Clara Westhoff, how simply and well you endured, lived through the experience, and made it a forward step in your young existence! So great w...more

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Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength ...more

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Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'hierarchies? and even if one of thempressed me against his heart: I would be consumedin that overw...more

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For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.

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In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spread...more

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If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as...more

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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creato...more