I could often tear my heart open and beat my poor head on seeing how little people can mean to each other. If I do not offer love and joy, happiness and warmth, ah! the other will not bring them to me either; nor will my heart, overflowing with rapture, move him at all if he is cold and listless.
It is the greatest and most genuine of pleasures to observe a great mind in sympathy with our own.
Albert fell upon her neck, and kissed her, and exclaimed, “We are so, and we shall be so!” Even Albert, generally so tranquil, had quite lost his composure; and I was excited beyond expression.
Ach Gott! die Kunst ist lang; und kurz ist unser Leben.
Oh, distance is like the future: before our souls lies an entire day and dusky vastness which overwhelms our feelings as it overwhelms our eyes, and ah! we long to surrender the whole of our being, and be filled with all the joy of one single, immense, magnificent emotion. And then, ah! once we hasten onwards, and what lay ahead becomes the here and now, everything is just as it was, and there we are, as poor and confined as ever, our souls longing for the elusive balm.
Thus, book after book, the book of all books would that it was given to us so that we might try to enter there as into a second world, where we lose ourselves, enlighten ourselves, perfect ourselves.
Dear Wilhelm, I have thought a great deal about Man’s desire to go out into the world, make new discoveries and go a-wandering, and, on the other hand, about that deep-seated impulse to be contented with limits that are imposed, and gladly to proceed as custom dictates, with no interest in what goes beyond the daily round.
I withdraw into myself, and discover a world, albeit a notional world of dark desire rather than one of actuality and vital strength. And everything swims before my senses, and I go my way in the world wearing the smile of the dreamer.
Our errors were endured because we found no beaten path; but from him who comes later into the world more is required; he must not be seeking and blundering, but should use the instructions of the old ones to proceed at once on the right path. It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
And why should I feel ashamed in that dreadful moment when my entire self trembles on the edge of being and not-being.
An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous.
When I have spent several hours in her company, till I feel completely absorbed by her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim, my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching senses. I am sometimes unconscious whether I really exist.
I often lose patience, when, with a glowing imagination, I am giving expression to art and nature, he interferes with learned suggestions, and uses at random the technical phraseology of artists.
And I mock at my heart – and then do what it demands.
77 The man who is up and doing should see to it that what he does is right. Whether or not right is done, is a matter which should not trouble him.
I have often reflected, dear Wilhelm, on the eagerness of men to wander about and make new discoveries, and on that secret urge which afterwards makes them return to their narrow circle, conform to the customary path, and pay no attention to the right or the left.
You go forth with joy to gather flowers for your queen in winter, and grieve when you can find none, and cannot understand why they do not grow.
I left her asking permission to visit her in the course of the day. She consented, and I went, and, since that time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: I know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
The things I’ve known – anyone can know, but my heart – that’s mine alone.
I watched Charlotte’s eyes. They wandered from one to the other; but they did not light on me, on me, who stood there motionless, and who saw nothing but her!