I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.
Robert WalserRead
How small life is here and how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bow their heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’s silence in a circle dance
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the contrast between the smallness of life and the vastness of emptiness, emphasizing nature's beauty and interconnectedness.
In this poignant quote, Robert Walser explores the existential themes of life and nothingness, suggesting that while human existence may seem insignificant against the backdrop of the universe, there is beauty in the simplicity of nature. The imagery of the trees bowing and the clouds dancing evokes a sense of harmony and quietude, inviting reflection on the interconnectedness of all beings within the vast silence of existence.
In practice
During a poetry reading about the beauty of nature.
I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.
I am not here [in the sanitarium] to write, but to be mad.
The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.
How much harm does a company have to do before we question its right to exist?
When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?
Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.
Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
Reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays.
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