Quotes About Reflection

It is good to be alone, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult should be one more reason to do it.

Whether you are surrounded by the singing of a lamp or the sounds of a storm, by the breathing of the evening or the sighing of the sea, there is a vast melody woven of a thousand voices that never leaves you and only occasionally leaves room for your solo. (Letters on Life)

Was soll ich mit meinem Munde? Mit meiner Nacht? Mit meinem Tag? Ich habe keine Geliebte, kein Haus, keine Stelle auf der ich lebe

Poetry is the past that breaks out in our hearts.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore/Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time/will stay up, read, write long letters/and wander the avenues, up and down/restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it becomes clear that most people get to know only one corner of their room, a window seat, a strip of floor which they pace up and down.

Kendi içine yürümek ve saatler boyu kimselere rastlamamak. Ä°ÅŸte eriÅŸilmesi gereken ÅŸey bizler için

Da dürfen Sie ... nicht erschrecken, wenn eine Traurigkeit vor Ihnen sich aufhebt, so groß, wie Sie noch keine gesehen haben; wenn eine Unruhe, wie Licht und Wolkenschatten, über Ihre Hände geht und über all Ihr Tun. Sie müssen denken, daß etwas an Ihnen geschieht, daß das Leben Sie nicht vergessen hat, daß es Sie in der Hand hält; es wird Sie nicht fallen lassen.

Wie hab ich das gefühlt was Abschied heißt. Wie weiß ichs noch: ein dunkles unverwundnes grausames etwas, das ein Schönverbundnes noch einmal zeigt und hinhält und zerreißt.

What poet's persuasion can reconcile the length of those days with the brevity of life?

Forest! They seek your trees to sleep among, With their long sentences hung. Forest!

And if there is one thing more that I must say to you, it is this: Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

There exists only one aloneness, and it is great, and it is not easy to bear. To nearly everyone come those hours that we would gladly exchange for any cheap or even the most banal camaraderie, for even the slightest inclination to choose the second-best or the most unworthy thing. But perhaps it is exactly in those hours when aloneness can flourish.

Think, dear Sir, of the world that you carry inside you, and call this thinking whatever you want to: a remembering of your own childhood or a yearning toward a future of your own — only be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening on your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people.

Each time we cast our view toward distances that have not yet been touched, we transform not only the present moment and the one following but also alter the past within us.

My God, if any of it could be shared! But would it be then, would it be? No, it is only at the price of solitude.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

There is only one solitude, and it is great and is not easy to bear, and to almost everyone there come hours when they would gladly exchange it for some kind of communion, however banal and cheap, for the appearance of some slight harmony with the most easily available, with the most undeserving… But perhaps those are just the hours when solitude grows; for its growing is painful like the growing of boys and sad like the beginning of Spring.

Who has turned us around like this, so that whatever we do, we find ourselves in the attitude of someone going away? Just as that person on the last hill, which shows him his whole valley one last time, turns, stops, lingers - so we live, forever taking our leave.

turn towards great and serious subjects, next to which irony becomes small and helpless.

En une seule fleur Enchantée de cet artifice, ton abondance l'avait osé. Tu étais assez riche, pour devenir cent fois toi-même en une seule fleur; c'est l'état de celui qui aime Mais tu n'as pas pensé ailleurs.

I have faith in nights.

You, still the squanderers of the empty hall — when the twilight comes, wide as woods… And the chandelier, like a sixteen-pointer, vaults where nothing can set foot.

We are unspeakably alone.