Karoline von Günderrode QUOTES

1 " A little while ago I was able to wander in a beautiful sublime fantasy world, in Ossian’s half-dark magical world. But the blessed dreams dissolve; they seem like love potions - they intoxicate, exalt and then disappear, that is the misery and wretchedness of all our feelings. With thoughts it is no better: one easily overthinks things to the point of staleness. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

2 " Let yourself live as you are without playing tricks on yourself, i.e., without trying to force yourself to love things that you cannot love. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

3 " It is strange that the imagination is the most productive when it finds no outer objects: then it creates objects itself and forms them all the more carefully, because there is no foreign material, but only its own children. There is no poetry in enjoyment (reality kills the dream), only in longing[.] "

― Karoline von Günderrode

4 " Why do human beings cling with such strength to thoughts and opinions, as if they were what is eternal? Why can they die for them, when precisely these thoughts are lost with their death? "

― Karoline von Günderrode

5 " Why, then, is everything on earth good except human beings? Why should they alone become different than they are? "

― Karoline von Günderrode

6 " There is an infinite force, an eternal life, that is everything that is, that was and will become, that engenders itself in mysterious ways, that remains eternal during all change and dying. It is at the same time the ground of all things and the things themselves, the condition and the conditioned, the creator and the creature, and it divides and separates itself in various figures, becomes sun, moon, stars, plants, animal and human being together, and flows through itself in fresh streams of life and contemplates itself in human beings in holy humility. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

7 " [E]ach individual is holy, it is God’s work, it is its own purpose. If it becomes what it can become according to its nature, then it has done enough, and what it profits others is a side issue. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

8 " Each interesting piece of knowledge, feeling or experience, if others don’t share it with me, is a mountain that separates me from those with whom I would like to join. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

9 " I love immensely to see myself reflected in others; for I hope the other will let me see a more beautiful image than I see in myself. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

10 " [I]t seems so sweet to be loved by excellent people; to me it is the most flattering proof of my own value. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

11 " Even the truest letters are, in my opinion, only corpses: they describe a life that inhabited them, and whether or not they look like the living, the moment of their life is already past. But for that reason, it seems to me (when I read what I wrote a while ago) as if I saw myself lying in my coffin and my two Is stared at each other in amazement. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

12 " I usually carry around a quiet little chamber in my mind in this life; in it I live an isolated, separated, happy life interested in and loving some person, an idea, a science, or an art. Because I linger much too much in this cosy little corner, I am stupid and strange with the world and people, and am always too clumsy to treat them as one should. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

13 " [E]ternity is in dreams, the calculation of time does not count there. Holiness is in dreams, and all holiness is only dreamt – eternity is the land of dreams[.] "

― Karoline von Günderrode

14 " Everything that was created is good, says the holy writing; why not human beings only? Why should they be otherwise than they are? Strange! - This fills me with sorrow. To slaughter one's sensations and wishes on the altars of necessity or morality, one calls that virtue. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

15 " [W]ithin me, the longing is always new and vivid to express my life in an enduring form, in a figure that would be worthy of joining the most excellent, greeting them and being in community with them.
Yes, I have always lusted after this community[.] "

― Karoline von Günderrode

16 " I have always read biographies with a peculiar joy, and in doing so it always appeared to me as if one could not invent a complete person; one only ever discovers one side and the complexity of human existence is never achieved[.] "

― Karoline von Günderrode

17 " We see single symptoms, hear one heartbeat of the century, and want to conclude from this that it is diseased. "

― Karoline von Günderrode

18 " [B]ecause we see only a few features of the immeasurable carpet into which the earth spirit weaves the times, let us be humble. There is a surrender in which alone lies bliss and perfection and peace, a kind of contemplation, which I might call dissolution in the divine; let us strive to reach this, and not complain about the destinies of the universe. "

― Karoline von Günderrode