Great Throughts Treasury

"A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free."

"Within this arena, which grows more stable night after day, generations work and love and hope and vanish. New generations tread on the corpses of their fathers, continue the work above the abyss and struggle to tame the dread mystery. How? By cultivating a single field, by kissing a woman, by studying a stone, an animal, an idea."

"I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards … and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence."

"We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence."

"The landscape affects the human psyche - the soul, the body and the innermost contemplations - like music. Every time you feel nature deeper you resonate better with her, finding new elements of balance and freedom."

"Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own."

"Everything in the world has a hidden meaning. . . . Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics. When you see them you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later that you understand."

"As I watched the seagulls, I thought: "That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.""