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“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
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“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”
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“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”
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“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but
for the heart to conquer it.”
― Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but
for the heart to conquer it.”
― Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore
“It breaks my heart. Better than your words, your eye tells me all your peril.
You are not yet free, you still search for freedom. Your search has fatigued you and made you too wakeful.
You long for the open heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your bad instincts too thirst for freedom.
Your fierce dogs long for freedom; they bark for joy in their cellar when your spirit aspires to break open all prisons.
To me you are still a prisoner who imagines freedom: ah, such prisoners of the soul become clever, but also deceitful and base.
The free man of the spirit, too, must still purify himself. Much of the prison and rottenness still remain within him: his eye still has to become pure.
Yes, I know your peril. But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject your love and hope!
You still feel yourself noble, and the others, too, who dislike you and cast evil glances at you, still feel you are noble. Learn that everyone finds the noble man an obstruction.
The good, too, find the noble man an obstruction: and even when they call him a good man they do so in order to make away with him.
The noble man wants to create new things and a new virtue. The good man wants the old things and that the old things shall be preserved.
But that is not the danger for the noble man — that he may become a good man — but that he may become an impudent one, a derider, a destroyer.
Alas, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And henceforth they slandered all high hopes.
Henceforth they lived impudently in brief pleasures, and they had hardly an aim beyond the day.
‘Spirit is also sensual pleasure’ — thus they spoke. Then the wings of their spirit broke: now it creeps around and it makes dirty what it feeds on.
Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are sensualists. The hero is to them an affliction and a terror.
But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject the hero in your soul! Keep holy your highest hope!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.”
―
You are not yet free, you still search for freedom. Your search has fatigued you and made you too wakeful.
You long for the open heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your bad instincts too thirst for freedom.
Your fierce dogs long for freedom; they bark for joy in their cellar when your spirit aspires to break open all prisons.
To me you are still a prisoner who imagines freedom: ah, such prisoners of the soul become clever, but also deceitful and base.
The free man of the spirit, too, must still purify himself. Much of the prison and rottenness still remain within him: his eye still has to become pure.
Yes, I know your peril. But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject your love and hope!
You still feel yourself noble, and the others, too, who dislike you and cast evil glances at you, still feel you are noble. Learn that everyone finds the noble man an obstruction.
The good, too, find the noble man an obstruction: and even when they call him a good man they do so in order to make away with him.
The noble man wants to create new things and a new virtue. The good man wants the old things and that the old things shall be preserved.
But that is not the danger for the noble man — that he may become a good man — but that he may become an impudent one, a derider, a destroyer.
Alas, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And henceforth they slandered all high hopes.
Henceforth they lived impudently in brief pleasures, and they had hardly an aim beyond the day.
‘Spirit is also sensual pleasure’ — thus they spoke. Then the wings of their spirit broke: now it creeps around and it makes dirty what it feeds on.
Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are sensualists. The hero is to them an affliction and a terror.
But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject the hero in your soul! Keep holy your highest hope!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.”
―
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