Progress Has Not Followed A Straight Ascending

All Ages Have Said And Repeated That One Should Strive To Know One's Self. This Is A Strange Demand Which No One Up To Now Has Measured Up To And, Strictly Considered, No One Should. With All Their Study And Effort, People Are Directed To What Is Outside, To The World About Them, And They Are Kept Busy Coming To Know This And To Master It To The Extent That Their Purposes Require. . . . How Can You Come To Know Yourself? Never By Thinking, Always By Doing. Try To Do Your Duty, And You'll Know Right Away What You Amount To. And What Is Your Duty? Whatever The Day Calls For.

At All Times It Has Not Been The Age, But Individuals Alone, Who Have Worked For Knowledge. It Was The Age Which Put Socrates To Death By Poison, The Age Which Burnt Huss. The Ages Have Always Remained Alike.

We Are Never Further From What We Wish Than When We Believe That We Have What We Wished For.

My Days Are As Happy As Those Reserved By God For His Elect; And Whatever Be My Fate Hereafter, I Can Never Say That I Have Not Tasted Joy— The Purest Joy Of Life.

Nature! We Live In Her Midst And Know Her Not. She Is Incessantly Speaking To Us, But Betrays Not Her Secret. We Constantly Act Upon Her, And Yet Have No Power Over Her. Variant: Nature! We Are Surrounded And Embraced By Her: Powerless To Separate Ourselves From Her, And Powerless To Penetrate Beyond Her.