Life and Existence

The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 4

The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 4

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing—to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. Not a select party.

Call the world if you please ‘The vale of soul-making’.

There is nothing stable in the world—uproar’s your only music.

Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

Then on the shore

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,

Souls of poets dead and gone,

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

By degrees

When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.