My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the … - Henry Miller

I stood before a mirror and said fearfully: “I want to see how I look in the mirror with my eyes closed.”

These wrods of Richter’s, when I first came upon them, made an indescribable commotion in me. As did the following, which seems almost like a corollary of the above — from Novalis:

The seat of the soul is where inner world and outer world touch each other. For nobody knows himself, if he is only himself and not also another one at the same time.

To take possession of one’s transcendental I, to be the I of one’s I, at the same time, as Novalis expressed it again.

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

The history of the world is the history of a privileged few.