*

Above all right and all duty, is love, leading lover and beloved to the
pure unfolding of their natures.

Woe to those who desecrate its divine mission!

*

My father's fate is also clear to me, now. He wished to live for and
perfect himself; and yet he had children whose love and affection he
claimed. His death was one of the terrible consequences of the life he
had led. That, however, does not make me innocent, and he dealt justly
toward me.

I have no desire to offer excuses for anything I have done. I mean to
be perfectly truthful. That is my only happiness, my only pride.

*

Your worth depends upon what you are; not upon what you have.

*

I have found the center about which my mind revolves.

*

During the last few days, it has seemed to me as if my father's
terrible punishment had never been executed, as if it were only the
guilty presentiment of my own imagination.

What has induced this sudden thought that will not leave me?

I know! I know! Whatever may have happened is now atoned for! There can
be a renewed life, a deliverance achieved by ourselves, and I feel that
this has been vouchsafed me. I am once more free! I can return to the
world and remove the bandage from my brow!

To the world! What is the world? I have it within me. I am in the
world, and the world is in me. I am!

*

I have sung again for the first time. Oh, how much good it did me! No
one heard me but myself.

No bird sings for itself; it sings for its mate. Man alone can sing and
think for himself. He alone possesses self-consciousness.

*

The calm of morn, which is always so dear to me, now seems to last
during the whole day.

*

Yonder brook often seems to roar much more loudly than at other times.
It is because a sudden wind catches it and bears the sound-waves toward
me.

*

(At work.)--When the material on which we work is hard and unyielding,
we learn to make a virtue of necessity. I often chance upon changes in
the fiber or grain which necessitate new beauties or deformities. I
often bring out touches which I did not intend, and those that I did
intend become quite different from what I had exp