All the means we've been given to stay alert we use to ornament our sleep. If instead of endlessly inventing new ways to make life more comfortable w… - René Daumal

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

The Primecrat, when asked in his turn to demonstrate his ouroborism, cupped his hands and shouted through the trap door to his followers:

'Take up military sports! For the sportsman of today is the soldier of tomorrow. The soldier of tomorrow will repel the invader and at the same time open up new markets for the industries of his country. The industries will prosper, the country will become rich, and thus it will be able to support associations which encourage military preparations and from these will emerge the soldiers of the day after tomorrow, who will repel the invader and at the same time open up new markets...'

The mechanical repeater was brought in. In somber mood, I recalled my whole life up to this day, and my head spun with the buzzing of a hundred and one ouroboristic worms. I remembered the drinking parties that made us thirsty and the thirst that made us drink; I thought back to Sidonius recounting his endless dream; to the people who worked to be able to eat and who ate to have the strength to work; to the black thoughts I drowned with such sadness in the cask and which were reborn in different hues. Between the vicious circles of the drinking party and those of the delusory paradises, I would never again be able to choose, I could no longer be part of their revolutions, I was from that moment no more than a wasteland.

Я мертв, потому что у меня нет устремления; У меня нет устремления, потому что я думаю, что обладаю; Я думаю, что обладаю, потому что не пытаюсь дать. Пытаясь дать, понимаешь, что у тебя ничего нет; Поняв, что у тебя ничего нет, пытаешься отдать себя; Пытаясь отдать себя, понимаешь, что ты ничто; Поняв, что ты ничто, ты стремишься стать; Стремясь стать, ты начинаешь жить.