It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.

When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair.

To a terrible place which men’s ears may not hear of, nor their eyes see it.

Our mortal eyes, however bright, are only darkened melancholy mirrors.

Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not act and speak like men asleep.

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be — and are ruined.

Darkness is only in the mortal eye, that thinks it sees, but sees not.

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.

What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.

Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark

Upon learning to see a man becomes everything by becoming nothing. He, so to speak, vanishes and yet he’s there. I would say that this is the time when a man can be or can get anything he desires. But he desires nothing, and instead of playing with his fellow men like they were toys, he meets them in the midst of their folly. The only difference between them is that a man who sees controls his folly, while his fellow men can’t. A man who sees has no longer an active interest in his fellow men. Seeing has already detached him from absolutely everything he knew before.