Immerhin hat das den Staat zur Hölle gemacht, daß ihn der Mensch zu seinem Himmel machen wollte. - Friedrich Hölderlin

Never before had I had so rich an experience of how true was the ancient saw which maintains that the heart is stirred with a new blessedness when it is able to remain steadfast even in the midnight of supreme affliction, and that it is in the course of the utmost sorrow that the life-song of the world first sounds in us divinely, like the song of a nightingale in the dark

What love and spirit give cannot be extorted. The state has always been made a hell by man's wanting to make it his heaven. The state is nothing but the coarse husk around the seed of life, the wall around the human fruits and flowers. Yet what good is a wall when the soil of our garden is parched? ... O inspiration, you will bring us the springtime of peoples again. The state cannot command your presence, but if it does not obstruct you, you will come.

I'm building a grave for my heart, that it may rest; I spin a cocoon around myself, because everywhere it's winter, in blissfull memories I wrap myself against the storm.