Came across these curious quotes from Goethe this week that seem to echo what was said at meeting for worship this past Sunday.
from Torquato Tasso:
O, that we forget so much to follow
The pure and quiet wink of the heart.
Wholly silently, a god speaks in our breast . .
From Years of Wandering
How can the individual stand before the infinite being, unless he
collects all of his spiritual powers, pulled as they are in many di-
rections, in his inmost, deepest being, unless he asks himself: can
you even think of yourself as standing in the middle of this living
order, if something constant and moving in circles about a pure
middle point does not arise in you? And even when it is difficult
to find this middle point in your breast, you will recognize it by
the fact that a benevolent and beneficial effect proceeds from it
and gives witness to it.
From Aphorisms and Fragments
In the human spirit, . . . nothing is above or below, everything de-
mands the same right in terms of a common middle point, whose
secret existence manifests itself precisely in the harmonious rela-
tion of all its moments to it.
From “Study after Spinoza“
[W]hen men construct a whole according to their abilities, . . . the
inner life . . . must become ever simpler, [they] must concentrate
on one point and renounce multiple confusing relations, and only
then can [they] find [themselves] with all the more certainty in a
condition of good fortune that seems a spontaneous and special
gift of God.