The grass asked a cow: "Is it right that you eat me and tread on me?" "I don't know," replied the cow; "but tell me: Is it right that the grass grows up from the bodies of my parents and will grow up from my own body?" * * * * * Solitude is full of God. Worldly clamour is godless. In solitude one feels both eternity of time and immensity of space. In worldly clamour one feels eternity and immensity only when death intervenes. The birds think that men cannot understand each other. Why should not men think better of birds? The wise man feels God most in the silence of night; the child most in the crash of lightnings and in the rolling waters. Three persons rushed the same way: a child, a learned man and a poor man. "Where to?" asked the angel. "To grow old quickly and to see God," said the child. "To acquire profit and learning, and to know God," said the learned man. "To become rich and to serve God," said the poor man. The angel said: "If the clear eyes of a child cannot see God, how can the dim eye of passionate man see Him? "If the simple mind of the unlearned man cannot know God, how can the bewildered mind of a learned man know Him? "If a poor man cannot serve God with his heart, how can a rich one serve Him with gold?" * * * * * If you marry, you will repent; if you do not marry, you will likewise repent. We never repent our brutality as much as our vulgarity. In being brutal we are equal to animals, but in being vulgar we are below them. When two blind men sit quarrelling about what is light, they are like two men quarrelling about what is God. A bird speaks and you do not understand, but God does, for it speaks his language. A lion speaks and you do not understand, but God does. The lion speaks his language. A brook speaks, and you stand on the bank and do not understand it, but God does. He made the brook's language. An oak speaks, and you wonder what it may say, but God does not wonder. He made the oak's language. * * * * * The devil has hopes as a man has, for he hopes that at the end God will listen to him, and the man hopes that at the end all men will listen to God. Every murder means also partly a suicide. If you oppose a boastful man, he will believe his own words and hate you. If you listen to him silently and go from him silently, he will feel himself punished, and will follow you and ask you, if you believed his words. What represents a boastful man? Poverty in spirit or in heart and wealth in words. The universe is too big for you to ask it to serve you, and you are too little to hope to change it. Blood binds men with a thread, but love binds them with a metal band. The bonds of blood hold longer, The bonds of love hold stronger. Easier it is for the sun to hate its own light than for a mother to hate her own son. * * * * *