'… and he was told but these few words / which opened up his heart…'

Just a trace of snow.

'I wouldn't change anything about it, it was perfect, it was the way how a day would go.'

'… for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off.'

'Once I saw electricity, I completely lost interest in nature. An unimproved thing.'

'You say, "It is grievous to have death right before one's eyes." In the first place, death should be under the eyes of the young as well as the old, for we are not summoned according to the census. Second, no one is so old as to be unjustified in hoping for one more day—and one day is a rung on the ladder of life.

One's entire life consists of parts, large circles enclosing smaller ones. One circle embraces all the rest; this corresponds to the span from birth to one's last day. A second encloses the years of young adulthood; another binds one's entire childhood in its circuit. Further, a year contains within itself all the time periods which, multiplied, make up one's life. A month is bounded by a tighter circle, a day by the smallest; yet even a day moves from a beginning to an end from sunrise to sunset. That was why Heraclitus, who got his nickname from the obscurity of his sayings, said,

  One day is equal to every day.

This is interpreted in different ways. One person says "equal" means "equal in number of hours"; this is true enough, for if a day is a period of twenty-four hours, all days are necessarily equal to each other, since night gains what is lost from daytime. Another says that one day is similar in nature to all other days, for even the longest stretch of time contains nothing that you do not find in a single day: both light and darkness. The regular alternation of the heavens gives us more nights and more days, but does not change their nature, although the day is sometimes briefer, sometimes more protracted. Every day, then, should be treated as though it were bringing up the rear, as though it were the consummation and fulfillment of one's life.'

Spring day, big headphones, sharp distance.

'Was Heißt Denken?', in a new translation by Will Britt.

'But this choice between "must" and "ought" is not merely occasional in the moral life; it is essential to it. "Ought," unlike "must," implies that there is alternative course you may take, may take responsibility for; but reasons are brought to urge you not to. (Cf. "Must We Mean What We Say?", pp. 28–31). However, unlike the case of games, what is and is not an alternative open to you is not fixed. Actions are not moves, and courses of action are not plays. What you say you must (have to, are compelled to…) do, another will feel you ought to do, generally speaking, other things equal, etc., but that here you ought (would do better) not to. (That is a much more usual moral conflict than the academic case of "You ought to do X", "You ought not to do X".) What you say you must do is not "defined by the practice", for there is no such practice until you make it one, make it yours. We might say, such a declaration defines you, establishes your position. One problem of the freedom of the will lies in what you regard as a choice, what you see as alternatives you can take, and become responsible for, make a part of your position. This is a deeply practical problem, and it has an inexorable logic: whether what you say you "cannot" do you in fact will not do because of fear, or whether out of a consistent conviction that it is not for you, in either case that is then your will. If the alternative is blocked through fear, then your will is fearful; if from single-mindedness, then it is whole. It is about such choices that existentialists say, You choose your life. This is the way an action Categorically Imperative feels. And though there is not The Categorical Imperative, there are actions which are for us categorically imperative, so far as we have a will. And though Respect for The Law may not sustain moral relationship, respect for positions not our own, will. And if the only thing good in itself is a good will, then the only thing evil or corrupt in itself is an evil or corrupt will. (That all actions which are, in this sense, categorically imperative, are self-imposed, our choice, indicates that the mere fact of self-imposition is not enough to achieve what Kant, or Freud, would mean by autonomous action. Compare Thoreau at the eighth paragraph of Walden: "It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself." Cf. The Senses of Walden, p. 78.)…'