(introduction by Jimmy Carter, foreword by W. H. Auden, also providing footnotes)
Never test the ground before taking your next step: only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.
Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
Praise nauseates you–but woe betides him who does not recognize your worth.
You are your own god–and are surprised when you find the wolf pack is hunting you across the desolate ice pack.
For it is always the stronger one who is to blame. We lack life's patience. Instinctively, we try to eliminate a person from our sphere of responsibility as soon as this particular experiment appears, in our eyes, to be a failure. But Life pursues her experiments far beyond the limitations of our judgement. This is also the reason why, at times, it seems so much more difficult to live than to die.
He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone, but loneliness can be a communion.
