Quotes by Robert Walser

“With the utmost love and attention the man who walks must study and observe every smallest living thing, be it a child, a dog, a fly, a butterfly, a sparrow, a worm, a flower, a man, a house, a tre...”

“That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles.”

“How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blowsthis at least prod...”

“I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they do...”

“God goes with thoughtless people.”

“I feel how little it concerns me, everything thats called "the world," and how grand and exciting what I privately call the world is to me.”

“cuando se es joven hay que ser un cero a la izquierda, pues no existe nada ms perjudicial que destacar pronto, prematuramente, en cualquier cosa.”

“Se aburren quienes se pasan la vida esperando que algo los estimule desde fuera...”

“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.”

“He doesnt see his path clearly, but also doesnt consider this absolutely necessary; he strikes out in some direction or other, and one thing leads to the next. All paths lead to lives of some sort,...”

“One listens to the murmur of the soul only because of boredom.”

“My cheeks are red hot,my lip still trembles,because I sent my heartto speak; every word of itdelusional and awkward,an exuberance, an abrupt sound.That's how I spoke, oh, it stillshows on my hot ch...”

“Artists, as a rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they arent allowed to understand anything about it.”

“After a spent day, Iwalked back in a fever.The whole way homethe sun touched my cheeks.The blissful evening glowspread across the meadowsand I called this lightthe blood I shed.My hot burning blood...”

“The soul of the world had opened and I fantasized that everything wicked, distressing and painful was on the point of vanishing...all notion of the future paled and the past dissolved. In the glowi...”

“And the pine trees that smell so wonderfully of spicy power. Shall I never see a mountain pine again? Really that would be no misfortune. To forgo something: that also has its fragrance and its power.”

“Ah, I believe Schacht. Only too willingly; thats to say, I think what he says is absolutely true, for the world is incomprehensibly crass, tyrannical, moody, and cruel to sickly and sensitive peopl...”

“I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself.”

“So you, too, like fruitcake? (RW on meeting Lenin in Zurich during World War I.)”

“How small life is hereand how big nothingness.The sky, tired of light,has given everything to the snow.The two trees bowtheir heads to each other.Clouds cross the worldssilence in a circle dance”