Selected diary notes 1968 - 1975

Maybe one day we can publish the whole diary in its original bilingual form, but parts of it will always remain unpublishable.

The diarist is a Swedish citizen living in Gothenburg. He is young in the beginning, in 1970 he starts contemplating suicide, and that's the major crisis and part of the diary. He seems to surmount the crisis but is struck by another one in summer 1971, which seems to be of a religious kind - he never reveals the whole truth of this crisis even to his diary. One can only imagine.

He comes of age in September 1971, and the most interesting part of the diary is perhaps the one that starts in 1972, when he seems to leave all his crises behind and exclusively devotes himself to contemplating history, philosophy, literature and art. Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" appears to have been of major influence on him. Towards the end of 1972 he returns gradually to religion, and there are some traits of Catholic dogma in 1973, although he remains critical against the Church throughout and finally confesses himself to Judaism but without formally converting.

That is in brief the argument of this remarkable philosophical work, written mainly in brief sentences in the obvious tradition of Marcus Aurelius, Blaise Pascal, La Rochefoucauld and other thinkers of the same sort.

First Part (1967 - May 1970)

Second Part (June 1970 - December 1970)

Part Three (December 1970 - 1971)

Part Four (1972)

Part Five (1973 - 1975)

The Last Notes

Copyright © C. Lanciai, May 1998.

august. Those who are talented and don't use their talents are like those old Persian caliphs who locked up all their fortunes and just kept them there while their people starved. If the talented aren't aware of their talents it's a very great misfortune.

6.3.1968. In the night I had this fantastic dream:

I was myself, and I had a brother who was exactly like my real brother in personality but with different looks: in my dream my brother was much darker.

We were two poor brothers, but we grew up, worked hard, were successful and became very rich landowners both of us. This was all in an ancient prehistorical age.

My brother's lands were in China, Turkestan and Kazakhstan. Especially in Kazakhstan he had very vast and fertile areas, but he lived mostly in China by the rivers and the mountains.

He was dark like a Tartar with black hair, dark skin and black bushy moustaches. He had an irresistible charm, with which he could get anyone with him, but he was rather cold and hard in his heart. He had no scruples and did whatever came across his mind if it only suited his impulse and caprice without ever considering how it would affect others. He was a born and perfect tyrant. His lands and his serfs he managed in an efficient and exemplary but cruel and heartless way.

I myself lived by my lands between the Euphrates and Tigris. I lived happily in harmony with my environment. The only thing I lacked was a wife. I hadn't found the right one.

But I knew well whom I loved. I had seen her once in my life and had never forgotten her. But I didn't know where she was. I had searched for her all my life without having found her. It was Celia. I loved no one but her. I was rather alone than without her, my only beloved and the only right one for me.

My brother got himself in time two wives. One was dark and beautiful and very much like my brother. I didn't care about her. She suited him well, since she was like him.

But after some time I learned, that the second was no one less than my Celia! My brother had found her somewhere and laid his hands on her, my own beloved Celia! I was beside myself and felt violated by my own brother, although he had known nothing about how much I had loved her. He had fallen in love with her like me but not equally much. That made me feel that I had a right to go and get her. He only used her, while I was the one who loved her. So I travelled to China in order to take her home with me.

I shall have to say something about the vast lands of my brother. They stretched from Huang-Ho to the Caspian Sea, but people living there were not happy under his command, and the sky above his world was always dark.

He used to whip his serfs and did not hesitate to shoot them down, and all his property he governed with an iron fist. Only his wives he treated without brute force.

But inside the Himalayas there were all the most horrible and dangerous dragons, snakes, lizards and slimy green reptiles well confined in deep dungeons. He also ruled these. He controlled them well in their sealed dungeons and only let out a few at a time when necessary in order to transform them into beautiful living animals. Deep down inside he was basically good, and his only great fault was his propensity for extremes.

So to his vast empire governed from China I went to fetch my beloved Celia.

He received me most benevolently. I was well taken care of in his house and met with both him and both of his wives. Celia recognized me immediately but seemed neither astonished, happy or frightened to see me. She showed no feelings. But I trusted her loyalty towards me and that she would understand me and my feelings.

But my brother controlled me and our conversation completely. He could manipulate me as he wanted with his irresistible charm. He knew that he was wrong but nevertheless enforced his will and overruled me completely. I reached nowhere with my arguments, for my brother knew well that he had Celia in his power and wouldn't release her just because I wanted it. I had no voice in his house, where he did as he pleased.

And Celia even loved him. She loved those parts of him that she knew: his charm, his ostentatious presumption, his flamboyance and superficial superiority.

When my brother and I argued about her she wouldn't hear but left the room now and then. Thus she didn't hear all my arguments and seemed only to have ears for what my brother said. She appeared to be so completely within his power that she had lost her independence and become like a slave, who couldn't break out of his fetters and who, in an effort to avoid his manhandling her and forcing drugs into her, had to stay loyal with him for her own sake. All this I didn't realize at the time.

In our arguments I tried to wheedle out his darker sides, so that her eyes would be opened and she would at last look through him, but my efforts had the opposite effect. For trying to show her who he really was she only got angry with me. And my brother kept his mask. He never lost control but succeeded well in concealing his bad parts in her company. I did not succeed in exposing a single flaw in his mask of superficiality made of the most superbly charming superciliousness. I couldn't get him to expose himself in front of her.

Finally Celia joined the conversation herself. It was just after my most brilliant speech, in which I thought I had succeeded in revealing and annihilating him completely. But she then berated me. I was the one to be annihilated by her. I had to leave my brother's castle with a broken back and neck, completely defeated, my mission unfulfilled. I had made a perfect failure and had to go home with empty hands. But most of all I cried because I had succeeded in turning my own beloved Celia into my enemy. She would never forgive me for what I had told my brother, although I had only told him the truth.

I then started wondering if I really knew my brother. What if I had been mistaken? Maybe he really was a good man and better than myself? Maybe he was the one to grieve for me and my evil mind and not the contrary? And maybe Celia and my brother really loved each other with honesty and earnest warmth, which I had believed myself to be the only one capable of?

I went home to my Mesopotamia and spent my days brooding on the problem in constant grief, but I never stopped informing myself of what went on in my brother's empire and how he managed his business.

One day came the disaster.

As usual one day my brother let out a few monsters from the deep dens of the Himalayas in order to chastise them and transform them into more beautiful creatures, when he suddenly lost control. He panicked and tried in desperation to close the gates to the Himalayan abyssal pits, but it was too late. Nothing could hold the monsters back once they got the scent of morning air. They came pouring out in most horrible torrents of masses. Snakes and reptiles, disgusting blood-sucking thick worms and horrifying dragons overwhelmed all China, for they came in millions, like a zoological deluge of monsters and dinosaurs. They ruined everything that got in their way and consumed all living things that they came across. They were more irresistible than the supereminent charm of my brother and all his unlimited political power. Everything turned into disgusting and terrifying chaos where his monstrous wild-beast show came flooding and drowning the civilized world like a deluge of poisonous monsters.

My brother perished in the disaster. All his magnificent realm collapsed and disintegrated completely.

It could have ended like this: I took care of the opportunity, took control of one after the other of all the small kingdoms that rose from the ruins of my brother's empire after his downfall, and became gradually exactly what my brother had been but with an even greater empire with even more wives whom I didn't love one bit. But it didn't happen that way.

Instead it was like this:

After the terrible disaster had exhausted its cataclysmic energy and all the monsters gradually had returned to their dens in the Himalayas after their holiday excursion, Celia appeared in India. She was alone. She had survived the calamitous crisis and was now like some flotsam in the world without protection, without a home, without anything. She was destitute and traumatized. I went there to meet her.

In an effort to help her across all her dreadful memories and surmount her trauma I took her for a long voyage. We visited Benares, Borneo, Ceylon and Rhodes. I never tried to reach her feelings. I just wanted to spare her and protect her and make her feel safe. I was hoping that she would forget all her terrible memories of the catastrophe and manage to bear with her inestimable losses and sorrows. I never accosted her except from mere politeness, and she also never opened her heart to me, as if she tried to seal it with her sorrows.

We then came to Venice from Rhodes. We were together aboard a ship and went out on deck in the rosy dawn; and there in front of us, glowing and glittering and enchanting like a whole eternity of bliss, Venice appeared on the waters in front of us in its supreme loveliness. I was seized with total joy regarding this spectacle. The sea was calm like a softly billowing mirror, and the city glowed golden in a fairy mist coloured rosy red in the early morning sun, which was as sweet as a caress by the warmest and softest universal hand of benevolence; but Celia showed no sign of any feelings. I just couldn't hold back my indescribable rush of feelings. I went up to the gunwale and made a gesture with my arm as if to unveil the whole incredibly beauteous city with all its magic mysteries to her and said to her:

"Look at Venice!"

And then she melted, as if the ice had lost its grip on her heart and released her and dissolved her relentless frigidity. She said something, and we fell into each other's arms, sinking down together on the clean and soft deck, and there we lay together for a long while absolutely still but tight to each other and warmed each other with our feelings at the sight of the overwhelming beauty of our new world and its overpowering impressiveness, which could make even her sorrows lose their grip on her tortured heart.

And in the evening at dusk, when we were retiring to our cabins, she said to me with honest warmth:

"Thank you for everything."

And thus ended my dream.

Those who love life love the search for good experience.

Those who are indifferent to good experience do not know what it is or have forgotten what it is.

Those who have tasted good experience once always want to taste it again. And when one fellow has gained much of it he does all he can to make others gain it as well. This is typical.

There is one secret with good experience, and one only: it contains and gives nothing but good.

The more imagination a human being possesses, the more the world has reason to expect of him.

The melody is the heart of music. The melody is the thing from which music receives all its life. The melody is the spirit of music; everything else is just flesh.

Unhappy people are those who can accept and forgive nothing.

To become one of the former is a goal worthy of devotion.

22.3. Your life is a picture which you are creating. The more beautiful you make it, the more joy you and others will receive from it now, tomorrow and forever.

1) A name for everyone's highest ideal,

2) a personality who is the source of life.

30.3. There is no limit to how good a man can become. He can always get even better than he is.

The third form of love is that which is called "free" love: you go to bed with A, you tire of her, you take B and tire of her, you take C, etc, etc, "it doesn't matter with whom you are making love as long as it offers pleasure." Lovers belonging in this third category are never faithful, and they do not care if those they love are faithful or not. They think of love as just fun which you can have with anyone anywhere. And they laugh at any idea of marriage.

The second form of love is very high. It is a true way of expressing the first. Those who marry, get children and stay faithful to each other for the rest of their lives are typical examples of this very admirable category. In this kind of love there is real love and not just pleasure.

Wedded couples who still love each other dearly beyond their sixtieth year of living are extremely admirable. The happy family wholly belongs to this second state of love,.

Marriage is not absolutely necessary to reach this state of love. Only one thing is necessary: true love. And the longer that true love lasts, the stronger and higher is this wonderful kind of love.

The highest form of love is, in my opinion, the purely spiritual one. An example of it is Jesus. Another is the Buddha.

This kind of love is so serene, so extremely strong, that the whole universe could be changed by the sole expression of it from one man. I really think it is true. This purely spiritual and all-powerful love belongs fully to the heart of the regions of no one less than God.

So, in brief, the four kinds of love are, according to me: 4) Corrupt love, 3) love for the sake only of pleasure, 2) true and honest love which also contains everlasting faith, and 1) that purely spiritual kind of love which is part of God.

The first does not, of course, imply any sort of sex. The other three do, though.

Physical violence is mere insanity. It is foolish, ridiculous and totally beyond all reason. Only mad and insane people believe in it and fight with it, and only the worst madmen in the world think they can gain anything from it. Physical violence is the most stupid thing in the world. I am sorry, I can not regard it or take it seriously.

Spiritual violence, of which physical violence is but a low and base expression, is basically nothing but evil. When you are spiritually violent, that is, evil, you insult people, you are angry with the man upstairs, you think dirty things about him, you criticize him, you abuse him, you ridicule him, you refuse to forgive your son for something, you punish him, you bully him, you are ironic, you are sarcastic, you make fun of your father-in-law, you wish him dead, you flirt with his wife; all such actions of yours of negative or destructive thinking and even of mere prejudice, are part of the same abominable thing called evil. It harms no one but yourself. In harming others, you succeed in harming no one but yourself.

Evil is a boomerang which kills twice. First it kills your victim. Then it kills yourself but in a very slow and painful way, like ants eating you up without your ability to stop them. It is totally unendurable. It is a bottomless pit the end of which is insanity.

Nothing is more worth than an individual. The individual is the costliest thing that ever existed.

Every single living individual today is the most wonderful thing on earth. No one is greater than he, the every single individual, and no individual has any right to in any manner put himself above the others. Only the others have the right to put him above them.

Individuals came into existence to enjoy life. There is only one way to really enjoy life, and that is to concentrate on the good things in it. Good things of life are such things which turn others happy when you perform them.

12.4. If you really love another person, you can be certain that his love for you is equally great. Real love is always mutual.

Mankind calls him a genius who is beyond their comprehension.

16.4. China has always been in the Middle Ages. Five thousand years ago they reached the Middle Ages before everyone else, and today they are still there. It is an amazing country.

17.4. Nothing is harder to accept than facts. If you can accept all the facts you are truly invincible.

If you find yourself in a very bad situation in life, do never do anything but find your way out of it.

18.4. The politicians are tearing down all the good old beautiful houses of our city. It would be quite excusable and comprehensible if they erected finer ones instead, but they don't. They erect modern monsters. Therefore it is not be pardoned.

I am fully with all those good people who wish to preserve the beauty which still remains of our old picturesque city. I fully disagree with all those who want to destroy every house standing in the way of the modern monsters.

Modern monsters are not beautiful. Those who consider them beautiful have no conception or sense of beauty.

The modern monsters are ghastly. Those who construct them are childish and ignorant people with minds like babies: they like to play with blocks.

The modern monsters are made of concrete, glass and plastic. Their basic characteristic is that they all look exactly the same: they all have the same sterility, the same lifelessness and the same stone-cold ugliness.

The modern monster is dead within, cheers no one and houses folk. It doesn't house individuals but folk.

The modern monsters have become more and more common, despite everyone's disliking them. There has never been a less popular house in the history of architecture, and never before the advent of functionalism has architecture been so unhuman.

The development of civilization is moving towards centralisation. One day perhaps we will have, as Le Corbusier with such pleasure imagined, one great society in one single giant house. On that day, society will have turned into a bee-hive or anthill, with workers and drones living in cells.

Literature is the art of creating beauty by the means of words.

There are basically two kinds of literature: the art of creating beautiful tales, and the art of creating beautiful sentences.

Poetry is an example of the latter. The novel and the short story are examples of the former.

A combination of the two is the highest kind of literature. Examples thereof are Shakespeare's dramas and Dante's "La Divina Commedia".

To reach the mastership of this kind of literature is the highest ambition you can have as a writer.

Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, Goethe, Pushkin, Stefan Zweig, Ibsen, Runeberg, Selma Lagerlof, H.C.Andersen and a wonderful bunch of others did truly reach it.

Angry and violent people are never sane. Peaceful and creative people are always sane.

Buddha's success lay in his gentleness. His gentleness and complete lack of any kind of violence made everybody trust him completely.

Peace, gentleness and kindness have always brought success and will always bring success, simply because these three things are too good to be true. All sorts of violence have seldom brought success and will seldom bring success, simply because everyone is sick of it.

A wonderful truth is that everyone is the sole owner of the most wonderful goldmine in the world. The golden mine is himself.

God never ruled anyone but himself. He gave to each man the rule of himself. It seems to me that each man did not use that gift too well.

God is no judge. Each man is his own judge.

No man can rightly judge or punish anyone but himself.

Of all lies ever invented I am afraid hell is the worst one. The one who invented it was as clever and mad as Caligula. As everyone knows, Caligula was the one who wished to destroy forever the Iliad and the Odyssey. He invented the rule by terror and found Literature his worst enemy. He was not the first emperor in history to make war on books.

The one who invented hell wanted to destroy the work of Jesus. I am afraid he almost succeeded: as the Church established hell as a doctrine, it started to control the masses by means of terror, just like so many of the Roman emperors had done. So the establishment of hell in the Church was in fact a restoration of paganism.

21.4. Jesus and Buddha were so different from each other, and yet they were so much alike. Buddha had greater success: he was more gentle and less ambitious, and therefore his words could be accepted with greater ease than the words of Jesus, which were easier to misunderstand. On the other hand, Jesus had more power and knowledge: Jesus was more aware of his purpose than Buddha was of his. And the purpose of Jesus was higher than that of Buddha.

Thanks to his gentleness, the words of Buddha reached more hearts than those of Jesus. Buddha expressed more accurately what he had in mind than Jesus, whose words and purpose were more confusing. Jesus was too readily misinterpreted and misunderstood. If Jesus had been as well understood as Buddha, no crucifixion would ever have occurred.

In my opinion, Jesus and Buddha tried both to express exactly the same ideas. Buddha succeeded in this better than Jesus.

They both became the two greatest symbols of good in history. Which one of them is the greater is hard to tell.

They are the two bright suns of history. They gave light to a dark world, and their lights will linger to eternally continue their spread across a dark universe, since their followers never will cease to expand and develop their missions of good, the two greatest individual missions in history.

Those who 'killed' Jesus should be pardoned by everyone. They really were not responsible for what they did. Only a very few were responsible, and all they wanted was to preserve their peace. No one really intended the tragedy, which was like a political gathering getting out of control.

The key figure was of course poor Judas. In blindness he put fire to the powder-magazine, not realizing that he was being manipulated by the intrigues of others. Aware of the result, he accepted all the guilt and responsibility himself by committing suicide, although it was unnecessary. He might even have been totally innocent.

Pontius Pilate was merely a poor coward lacking character.

Caiaphas was afraid of the power of Jesus, because Jesus had used it to abuse him and his learned colleagues in the establishment. Because of his fears of what Jesus might do next, he committed Jesus to put a stop to his liability. He might also have been jealous of the man from Nazareth who considered himself God's son and no one else.

Jesus made people feel uncomfortable. Some people even felt insecurity in the presence of Jesus. They were afraid to lose something of value, perhaps their accepted ideology, since Jesus had the bold habit, like Socrates, to bring everything into doubt. And few can accept and forgive a loser. When Jesus had been prosecuted, beaten, scourged and crowned with thorns, after a few days earlier having been greeted like a king, saviour and liberator by the people of Jerusalem, they just couldn't stand the sight of him or forgive him the fact that he had lost and betrayed them. So they just wanted to get rid of him.

All those who really understood something about Jesus, like John and Peter, James and Thomas, did everything they could for him, but they were far too few. Still they were enough to make Jesus as important to civilization as Buddha.

Buddha was perhaps the most lovable man who ever wandered on earth. Everybody loved him everywhere, and those very few who did not wholly enjoy his presence gently stayed out of his way.

As a prince, the noble son and heir of a king, he ruled in a country of great riches. He married and raised a perfect family, but when suddenly one day he discovered another world outside his protected palace, of sufferings, of poverty, sickness, misery and death, he did not hesitate but immediately abandoned his titles and responsibilities, his family and his wealth, to dedicate his life to commiseration with the poor and miserable and to charity with all mankind.

He was a born thinker, and almost all his life was mainly dedicated to thought. Realizing the all-importance of thought and spirituality to life, he cared little for worldliness and was always content with very little. He never had any ambitions. All he wanted was to influence mankind with goodness, charity, consideration and universal respect of all life. His complete lack of pretentions made him the most influential person in Asia ever. He always wished to do everything for everyone and nothing for himself.

Today he is in some parts worshipped as a god. That is all wrong, for he was never anything but his fellow-beings' fellow-being. If people consider him a god they misunderstand his humanity.

You are always as great as you with your heart consider your neighbour. You are never greater or more than you consider your fellow-being.

Last chances do not exist. Chances and opportunities always come again.

You can never waste anything. You can never waste your love, talent, time, energy or even your money. To waste is to give affluently, and that is never a bad thing to do, because what you are wasting always lands somewhere.

Life is a joyous play written by us, staged by us, played by us and watched by us. The heroes and heroines of our play are those of us who impress.

The play is an endless dramatic comedy which is slowly getting better and better all the time.

This diary is nothing but a work of art. I am an artist, nothing more and nothing less, and this diary is only one of my works of art, nothing more and nothing less.

I would like every reader of it to know, that I never want this diary to be considered as anything else but a piece of art. I am no politician, no philosopher, no religious speculator or anything else than merely an artist.

Nobody must be hindered from living and creating his own life, not even the drug addict, the alcoholic or the lunatic.

Nobody can save all these people but themselves. Everyone can save himself if he must. The only right way to live is one's own.

The oldest, the most common and the most repeated truth of all is perhaps this one: Your life was given to you for you to create.

Life pleases no one all by itself. Only You can make life please you.

Your life is pleasant and enjoyable only when You make it so.

Buddha and Jesus were nothing but very good artists. All priests are good artists. Everyone who is living for God is a good artist.

The good artist is the link between man and God.

An artist who does not live for God is no artist. But probably all artists do live for God, whether they are aware of it or not. Or else they would not have become artists.

Everyone who lives for God, aware of it or not, is an artist.

The popular music, e.g. Beatles etc., is, like all music, good when it is beautiful. It is too seldom beautiful, therefore too seldom good.

Nothing gives me more pain than being the witness of one human being misunderstanding another.

No tragedy is greater than that which relates the history of misunderstandings.

Every single thing of evil existing today, as violence, ignorance, stupidity, insanity, blindness and cruelty, has its source in one sole misunderstanding somewhere in the past, and that misunderstanding was probably between man and God.

One day, I am sure, everything will be peace and happiness.

Violence will fade away and disappear forever, just like every single thing of evil that ever existed.

Evil never survives. Good always survives.

Everything of evil will die and be forgotten. Everything of good will live forever and be glorified and worshipped forever.

You always harm yourself more than your fellow-being, as you harm him.

You are always glorified yourself when you glorify your fellow-being even more.

Whatever you do to your fellow-being, it always becomes part of you.

Earth belongs to those who love it. Whoever its rulers may be, it belongs to its lovers alone.

Never act against your conscience. Acting against your conscience is acting against yourself.

The man who has no conscience has no self. He has lost his self. He has buried it alive acting against it. It lies somewhere at the bottom of his ignorance.

He can always retrieve it.

23.4. Romantic films are always successful if their romances are real and truthful. The romances of, for instance, "The Sound of Music" and "Doctor Zhivago" were very real, while for instance the romance of "The Fall of the Roman Empire" was not very real.

Do not try to forget, destroy or disconnect from the past. You will never succeed. To destroy the past is as impossible as to try and destroy the present and the future. The past will always remain alive as much as the present and the future.

The more you are the master of your own past, the more you will be the master of your own present and your own future.

God is one of us. He lives perhaps next door.

In peacetime you can always trust anyone. In war and in any sort of circumstances involving violence you suddenly find that you can trust exactly no one.

Everyone should be able to trust everyone. Violence was the only thing that ever created distrust.

No composer ever worked harder than Schubert. He slaved to give mankind his music, and he received nothing for it but the love of his friends. This love was enough to keep him alive and make him continue slaving.

His life ended before it had even started. When he died he had yet achieved nothing of what he had wanted to achieve as a composer. And yet he had achieved more.

Every existing individual is the highest thing of all: a work of art - nothing else.

Like every single piece of real art, every individual is, of course, undying.

I am not strictly chaste. It just so happens, that I have never been at all interested in any kind of sex.

If everyone was like me, mankind would die. Only its spirit would survive.

Live for your love. Live for nothing but your own love, the people and the things and the ideas you love. Make your love the guide of your life. It will lead you forward.

Those who wonder about the meaning of life have no love to live for. They should find their love, and then their life's meaning will appear to them. Discover your love, and you have discovered everything.

If you love mankind, live for mankind. If you love art, live for the sake of art. If you love your wife, live for your wife. If you love nature, dedicate your life to nature. Whatever you love, live for that thing only. Your love will make you grow spiritually; by exploring your love you will more and more begin to understand it, and the more you understand love, the more you will understand everything.

Everyone is capable of spiritual love. Spiritual love is the very highest and purest kind of love. Of spiritual love I speak.

If you love many things, live for them all.

Never desert your love. Never desert the things and the people you love. Never desert what you live for. To do so is to harm yourself beyond expression. Never do this terrible thing to yourself. To desert your love is to desert your life. Be faithful to your everlasting love.

Those who have had love but who have lost it can regain it, always. Anything you ever lost you can regain, if it is good. You only lose something in order to regain it. Because by loving it you make it a part of your soul, and once it is part of your soul it will remain with you forever. It can not die. Because love never dies.

Your love is your guide. It is your light. It leads you forward. Always follow your love, the light of your life, and you will always be moving forward towards greater heights.

Your love is your life. It is your only real possession, your only possession that is not perishable. It is you. It is what makes life wonderful. It is what makes it worth living and glorifying.

It is worth living for.

24.4. All that I have written down in this diary is just common sense. At least I could not call it anything else than common sense.

The things untrue are of course not common sense. But if anything in it is true, that thing is just common sense - known to everyone already. 

25.4. The most respectable profession of all is that of the artist. It is also, perhaps, the most common profession of all.

The artists are those who carry the earth on their shoulders. They alone make it move forward, develop and shine. They do this by inspiring it and endowing it with spirituality.

Because of art, man is not an animal.

An artist is someone who lives for God. He may be aware of it or not.

He can have any profession. Christ, for instance, was a pure artist. Abraham Lincoln was also an artist. Alexander the Great was an artist who made his life into a splendid work of art. Even Albert Einstein, I consider, was much of an artist.

Good examples of very good artists are Christ, Buddha, Pericles, Plato, Augustus, Charlemagne, Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Francis, Henry V, Queen Elizabeth I, David Livingstone, Socrates, Confucius, Otto the Great, Frederick Barbarossa, Moses, Samuel, Jeremiah, Solon, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, King Alfonso the Wise, Columbus and Maghellan, among others.

A creator of living art is always a good artist.

Good artists have always been and will always be needed and welcomed. The world will always shout for joy whenever a new one enters the stage of creative history.

I always tried to influence people. If I ever succeeded, I hope my influence was not too bad.

Also I always wished to be influenced by others. I was always very well influenced by others. Almost everyone I ever met with influenced me greatly and enriched my soul with wondrous and costly treasures, that if I would try to thank them all for each treasure that I did receive, I would never, never be able to succeed.

The greatest encouragement anyone can receive is perfect understanding.

Philosophy, the truth, science, religion, etc., are in my opinion nothing but parts of the simple thing called common sense. Everyone knows it more or less. Everyone possesses the knowledge of it and uses it more or less.

Psychology, Christianity, Buddhism, stoicism, psycho-analysis, anthropology, Islam and all other such kinds of things are in my opinion nothing but over-complicated forms of common sense.

Common sense is what everyone knows in his heart. It is knowledge about everything. Everything which is true for everyone is part of common sense.

There are two kinds of common sense, or two stages thereof. The first is what exactly everyone knows in his heart. It is Basic common sense. It is nothing but the truth, the facts.

Everyone knows everything about this sort of common sense in his heart. Basic common sense belongs to everyone, and everyone knows it and uses it more or less. No one is unaware of basic common sense. No one is wholly ignorant about it. Everyone basically has a Conscience.

The basic common sense consists of nothing but the coolest and plainest of facts. They are very impersonal and stale and sometimes hard to face. The basic common sense is nothing but the plain truth about everyone. It is the realities of life, both material and spiritual. Some people call it Karma, but it is then that Karma which everyone has in common.

The second kind of common sense is more educated and personal. It is philosophy. It is wisdom. It is what is true but not known to everyone. It is the result of long and good experience. It is the Truth, but it is not true to everyone. Therefore it is personal.

It comprises the knowledge of love and understanding, of grace and of glory. It comprises the field of art and of beauty.

It is attainable only by learning. Socrates, Plato, Buddha and Marcus Aurelius were teachers of it. It is called Refined common sense.

People like Jesus, Aristotle and Epicure concentrated more on analysing the basic common sense, establishing it in forms and making it known.

Science is a complicated form of basic common sense. Philosophy is a complicated form of the refined common sense.

So there are two stages of common sense. The first is the one which everyone knows all about in his heart: basic common sense, the facts, the truth.

The second is the result of good experience and of learning: refined common sense - basic common sense Simplified.

Of the two you should concentrate on mastering the basic common sense. Refined common sense will then sooner or later come to you by itself, if your mind is open to it.

The most marvellous and wonderful man who was ever brought into existence lives next door. He is charming, he can make you totally happy, he can joke, and he can give you as much joy and pleasure as ever the best friend you could ever imagine. He is truly the finest and best character in the world.

He sits behind his door waiting for your delightful company every day of his life. He longs for your friendship, he longs for your acquaintance, he is lonely and shy just like you. He is the most wonderful man in the world. And yet you do not know him.

It is about time you made his acquaintance. You have been strangers to each other always. Now, step out of your door, knock on his, and shake hands with him as he opens. Then invite him to your place for a cup of tea. I am truly certain that he is the finest man in the world. To know him, I assure you deeply, is most invaluable.

Who he is? Whom this strange man I am speaking of is? In a moment I will whisper it to you.

He is your own fellow-being.

27.4. Do not believe in hell or in any such thing. Hell never existed and most certainly never will. The idea of hell is the most foolish one that man ever invented in his folly.

If you think someone is bad, evil, a friend of the devil, a crook or otherwise a guy to keep away from, it simply means that you have not understood him properly.

Don't believe in those complicated tales and things which people teach you. The truth is never as complicated as Hinduism, islamism, Christianity, Buddhism or naturalism.

The religions all deny each other. Therefore they can but be all false.

The simple truth, the basic facts deny nothing: They explain everything.

Man could never have done without God. Therefore God exists, at least as an idea. Whether he exists as a personal being, though, will always remain a most debated issue.

Search for the simple truth and you will find it. Search for it everywhere, deny nothing; search in every religion, science, philosophy and weird organization, and you will find it everywhere in bits and pieces, because the truth can never be monopolized. Everything that makes sense is part of the truth, and although most things in this world do not make any sense, some things always will.

Do not think that anything ever changes, for the truth is that nothing ever changes.

The times appear to change, but they really never do.

At the end of every infinity a new infinity immediately begins, and the latest infinity was just like the very first, only a slight bit better, maybe.

History repeats the same old story all the time: war, peace, new systems and progress; war, peace, new systems and progress; war, peace, new systems and progress; etc, etc, etc.

Nothing ever changes.

Even if the world blew up it would not be a change of any great importance.

The world must, of course, never blow up. The world is worth preserving for its immense treasures of art and for its wondrous history and beauty of art and nature.

28.4. Ignorance is the worst thing I ever came across. It terrifies you when you meet with it face to face.

Ignorance is one word for blindness, misunderstanding, stupidity and irresponsibility. A truly ignorant man sees nothing, understands nothing, acts like a fool and imagines that nothing has anything to do with him.

He never laughs and never cries. He is like made of stone. He thinks art and love is rubbish. If he is religious he is even worse than the pious people so accurately described by Graham Greene. If he is religious, he is a fanatic, covertly or openly.

He is totally blind to all his own faults. The thought that he might be wrong is impossible for him to imagine. He is a cynic; he despises everyone and everything. No one ever likes him.

He never takes any notice when he is harming or hurting others. He never understands anything about good. He thinks everyone is bad and is often paranoid, taking evil for granted everywhere. He lacks all common sense. And he is, of course, the unhappiest man in the world.

When he is angry or in any way active, all he wants is to destroy. In the eyes of foolish people, he is then fascinating. When he is not angry, he seeks destruction still, but covertly.

He is a man who has forgotten all about himself. He has lost himself, his good heart, his conscience and his sense, and therefore he is totally ignorant.

Sometimes he is also regrettably clever.

The more you are aware of good, your conscience, your own faults, God and life, the less ignorant you are, and the happier you are.

Everyone can always become less and less ignorant. Ignorance is everyone's greatest fault, and it can always be fought with success.

The only sin is ignorance, and the only vice is conscious ignorance.

Life is always enjoyable when your purpose in it is good.

The world usually recognizes geniuses when they are children or when they are dead.

Far too much importance and significance is given to the teaching of sciences at school. Far too little significance is given to the teaching of more important things such as languages and different cultures and religions of earth.

Mathematics can never unite mankind. International understanding will.

30.4. The one thing you can never glorify enough is your fellow-being.

People in the world who can not criticize themselves are like ships at sea lacking helms.

Never lose the power of self-criticism. It is one of your most valuable and important gifts. When you are out on the stormy billows it will keep you on the right course.

People who can not criticize themselves have no conscience. They have no identity. They are, I am afraid, ignorant.

You are the captain of your ship. Always keep alert.

2.5. Never suppress your feelings. Pure feelings of love can never hurt anyone.

But do keep them pure.

4.5. The greatest guides of the world and history were mostly artists and teachers of religions. The were seldom politicians.

This diary of mine, like my music, came into existence only by chance. I wrote it only to practise English.

I am still far from the master of English I wish to become, so for the time being I will continue to practise my English.

Never be content with the knowledge you already have. Always strive for more. Never be satisfied with your experience, your luck, your happiness and your learning, but always be hungry for more. What is good can never be enough or too much. On the contrary, it always remains too little.

Life is the sort of food which no one ever had enough of. The nature of it always must needs have more.

5.5. Never mistrust your own imagination. Everything you are able to imagine you are also able to make real.

Make your goal in life as high as possible. For an example: construct in your thoughts a castle of dreams more wonderful than the brightest dreams you ever dared to dream, and then live only for that dream-castle. Never desert it. Make it real. Then one day you will see it wholly come true.

Beautiful things are always true. They are worth believing in.

Your own imagination is always true. You can always believe in its good products without risking anything.

But never use your imagination to escape from reality. Reality exists for you to make it better.

Reality is a wonderful thing. It is the thing for you to use to build and create exactly whatever you like. With reality for a tool you create your life, with the means of reality you create your home and your family; reality is the thing to use when you want to make real whatever you desire.

Dreams do always come true, if you make them come true.

Pride is a sort of awareness of one's self. It is a very good thing to be aware of yourself, but never let it in any way come between you and your fellow-being.

Be proud, but keep your pride to yourself.

I never accepted evil, and I never will.

8.5. You can but love Tchaikovsky. His warmth is excelled by few. His melodies are of the very finest kind. And only Beethoven, Brahms and Sibelius made finer symphonies.

I never tire of him. I never will.

Yesterday in town an extraordinary incident befell me. It was an incident of such rare magnificence that every doubt I ever had concerning the world disappeared for ever. It made me completely trust the entire future.

The incident was this. A small boy, hardly more than eleven years old, walked on the pavement. He was a happy boy, for he whistled. His parents were obviously poor, and his home country could not have been Sweden. His face belonged either in Italy or in Hungary.

He was dirty but happy. He was a merry whistling child, and as such are rare I tried to make out what tune he was whistling. I recognized the tune, but at first I could not remember where I had head it so often. I wondered for a long moment.

And then it came to me. The tune which this little poor Hungarian or Italian child was whistling quite correctly was one of the melodies in the third movement of the first symphony by Sibelius.

This incident completely restored my entire faith in mankind.

The despot should himself choose his government, (and this government should be nothing but the despot's good friends and advisers, the number of which he should choose for himself.) The despot should have total power and responsibility over his country for as long as he remains in office.

The ideal economic system is to let everyone create his own life without any intrusions from the state. Everyone should stand on no legs but his own. Everyone should build his own fortune, his own happiness, his own family and his own future. Every individual should be free to do whatever he considers optimal.

Taxes should not exist, but everyone trusting the despot should demonstrate this by sending him a little money and small gifts of appreciation every month. The ruler should then politely keep for himself only what he needs and nothing more. He should never be remarkably rich, and if the people made him too poor he should take it as a sign of their displeasure and resign. The despot should have no income except the small money offered him by his own people. He should never accept great sums.

Hospitals, courts, schools and churches should be the people's concern and not of the government.

The despot's duty should be to act as a gentle leader for his people. He should know his country thoroughly well, travel around it often, associate with his people, correct occasional wrongs, personally answer letters and questions from his people and give advice to everyone who needs it. He should be his country's one and only politician. He should be its guide and father and servant. He should remain in office for as long as his people would like him to, but he should also be able to resign at any time.

His purpose should be to maintain peace and harmony. He should never be violent. He should have no army and no police whatsoever. He should also do his best to encourage good things in his kingdom such as art, knowledge, the conservation of nature, and he should also write books, allowing his people to get to know him personally and his views.

To the world outside his country he should set a good example, and good examples set by others in other countries he should follow. He should be on friendly terms with all other leaders in the world, and his every colleague all round the world should be able to trust him like a brother.

If every country in the world had this system, all the despots should choose one man for a "Father". This one man should then be to all the leaders of the world what the leaders should be to their people. He should, of course, be almost an ideal.

He should be nothing but an adviser. He should not do anything except when the leaders ask him to. He should answer letters, questions and problems of the world's leaders, and he should be for them simply a father.

His children should not come to see him personally, in general. They should write letters, or they should come when he invites them, or they should come when he honours them by begging them to. He should be the most careful and responsible of all men, and he should never be dependant on anything.

He should be like a Marcus Aurelius, or even finer.

He should know the world like his children their countries, and like them he should resign when he finds, by the gifts he receives, that he has lost his children's trust and confidence. Just like them, he should also make his views on things known by writing books and articles, and he should encourage whatever he considered good in the world.

This idea of mine is of course only workable in a world of peace, in a world without any arms or violence whatever.

Never think that your fellow-being has wrongs, for that is not for you to judge. Only he can judge that. All you can ever judge is yourself.

Be patient with those who criticize you, but never take their criticism seriously.

Disregard and forget everything which in any way is negative, such as criticism, irony, sarcasm and anger. Negative emotions and words like these never mean anything and never contain any sense.

To take stupidity seriously is to take part in the stupidity.

Never fear anyone or anything. If you fear something, look at it carefully and closely, and you will fear it no more. If you fear someone, or several ones, ignore them. They are not worth paying any attention to.

People often fear what they do not understand. No one ever feared what he did understand.

Never take anything seriously, except good.

Always take good seriously.

10.5. My greatest fault has been not to open the lid of the coffin in which I have always lain.

One day I will open it to let myself out.

Rudyard Kipling was blind to the ugliness of the world. He saw everything through the beauty of his personal eyes. The imperialism which he imagined was very good.

Always keep your mind very open. Wonderful things are happening every day.

Always consider everything from two points of view: yours and theirs.

That is the way to adapt oneself to the world.

In my opinion, evil never existed. Only ignorance and spiritual illness did.

Everything which denies anything of good is false.

11.5. People have the habit of being afraid of what they do not understand. They should overcome this fear by getting to understand what they are afraid of.

12.5. Always be sensible. Never deny anything without having a proper reason.

The best thing of all is of course to never deny anything whatsoever.

People who can not say "no" can not deny. They should be admired.

I never understood anything about sex. I was almost totally ignorant about it. I always understood love, though, and I always kept falling in love with every other girl of my age, but my love was always completely free from sex, which never has played any part in my life.

13.5. Why do people cut films? To cut films after their first nights is a most abominable crime, like cutting a canvas.

Few things are to me more painful than to see a good film which has been mutilated.

15.5. When you want to judge something, whatever it is, do look at it as a whole. Never judge it from its details. Do always know something wholly before you judge it, and then judge it as the one thing it is.

There is a fact which never ever should be overlooked by anyone, namely the fact that each individual has his very own love and very own basic purpose, and each individual's love and basic purpose is entirely different from everybody else's.

Every individual is entirely different from everyone else. Two human beings with identical personalities did never exist.

Try mastering your every difficulty with your love. You will find yourself succeeding.

The manner in which the science of scientology is being disseminated and spread I find to much to criticize.

1. It costs money. It should not cost any money. This fact is recognized by everyone. Even those who work for the science know themselves this fact. They say they can not help it.

2. Too many of those who have studied scientology are too proud. They are arrogant. They think they are so exceptionally right because of their superior knowledge, and this kind of self-assumed supremacy is also often found in a) skilful musicians, b) other scientists and c) theosophists. They look upon "ordinary" people without their education and insights with disdain. They even call people who happen to be ignorant about the secrets of their science "wogs", as if they were inferior and aberrated beings. They don't seem to be aware of that no one was ever more than an individual.

There is nothing wrong about pride in itself, but when it becomes a wall between people it should immediately be torn down.

Personally I regard scientology as a science which could help mankind leap forward, since it has an almost perfect technology to cure mental illness, criminality and drug addiction. But it has to do away with the two above-mentioned gross faults, which only lead to misunderstandings, hard feelings and antipathy.

The world I can but see as a whole. I live for the world, and this world which I live for contains every single living individual, whether he is blue, black, yellow or aquiline, whether he is learned, dull, idiotic or aristocratic, whether he is a catholic, a brahmin, a naturalist or an atheist, whether he loves, hates, likes or bites. Everyone is part of my world. Everyone is part of the world I so much live for and love.

The most important thing in the world is your love. Nothing in the world is more important than your own love. Never desert your love anyhow anywhere for even the slightest moment. Live for your love every moment of your life, and truly you will not regret it.

Venice, beloved city of mine, the costly jewel which I only had the bliss of seeing once, you must be saved. My world I pray to save her. Save the splendid Queen of the Mediterranean!

Venice is one of the most beloved cities in the world. Therefore to let her drown would be one of the most unforgivable sins imaginable. To let Venice drown would be a greater disaster than even the second dreadful world war.

Artists built her. Artists created her, and artists always adored her. Venice belongs to the good artists, to those who always loved her, and to her children. She is one of the most beloved cities in the world; therefore I pray to all: Save her.

My world, - save Venice!

16.5. A city becomes beautiful when you do not change it. Rome, for an example, was a hundred years ago the most beautiful city in the world, and so it was because it had not changed for two hundred years.

Change a city, and you bereave it of its charm by interfering with its natural development. Keep a city unharmed, and maintain it carefully without changing it, and you will find its charm steadily increasing.

17.5. Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are countries who have tasted real imperialism. So is Tibet.

In the world there are three things which always were and always will be victorious. These three things were and are Truth, Love and Beauty. The three combined into one was the only thing which ever made the world progress, that is spiritually and culturally.

What comes from your soul is always good, true and beautiful. Trust your own soul always and ever.

Especially parents should beware of the enemy called ignorance, for nothing can harm a good child more than ignorant parents.

18.5. Be independent. Seek independence. Do never become dependant on anything or anyone. Total spiritual independence is perhaps the highest human state of all. When you have gained total spiritual independence you have at last started living your life.

Be dependant on nothing, not even your flesh and blood. Enjoy and use your life, but never become dependant on it.

No one ever was greater than you, just as no one ever was less than you.

The hardest, toughest and most difficult thing of all to conquer is total solitude or emptiness. If you can conquer that without degenerating or becoming degraded in any way, you are a free and independent man; in brief, then there is nothing wrong with you.

One of the most tragic tales in the history known to us is that of the battle of Hastings in 1066. William the Conqueror and Harold Godwinson were at that time the two finest kings in Europe. Had they become partners and close friends ruling together, Europe might have seen its great renaissance four centuries earlier.

None of them wished to fight. They were forced to fight by the barbarous customs of that age. The best man won, though.

King William became bitter and rough, probably because of the loss of the man he had expected most of.

Something can never become nothing. Therefore everyone is immortal. Therefore everything is immortal. Nothing else is possible.

A thought, a personality, a life, a piece of art, all these things are immortal, because something can never become nothing. Everything can change, but nothing can die.

Never read a book without understanding it. To do so is to waste your time.

Always read a book carefully. Understand every word, every sentence and every meaning, and your servant the author will appreciate you greatly and with pleasure write for you again, if you would like him to.

The difference between science and religion is, that science lacks spirit, and religion has too much of it.

A science consists of insipid but interesting facts. A religion consists of adorned romantic tales, fantasies, lies and truths all muddled up together.

Between these two stands philosophy. It is interesting and factual, and yet it can also be very enjoyable and spiritual.

All these three are of course but mere over-complicated expressions of man's common sense.

19.5. The only vice ever was ignorance.

Opinions are never of any value, except when they are good.

The mistakes you commit and afterwards regret are the best lessons of all.

Angry people should never be trusted or even noticed. They should be pitied and disregarded, for they do not make any sense.

Your future is but a beginning.

21.5. Never say or think : "I can't help it." You can always help everything.

Always overestimate your neighbour. But never overestimate yourself.

Everyone is capable of having a totally open mind, of understanding everything, of loving or liking everything and of creating his own happy life without difficulties. Everyone is capable of this quality, and everyone who ever lost it can regain it. But why did ever anyone lose it? How could anyone ever have done this terrible thing to himself?

Hell is a lie. Nothing is ever eternal except what is good.

Purgatory is ignorance and misery. We all dwell there, more or less.

Heaven is what awaits us all, sooner or later. It will be ours when we find it.

22.5. Those who think Israel is right and the Arabs wrong are just as wrong as those who think the Arabs are right and Israel wrong. Both Israel and the Arabs are both right and wrong.

Israel should rid themselves of all American influence, withdraw their troops from the Arabic land they occupy on the condition that they may now live in peace, and quiet down all their own fanatics and zionists.

The Arabs should rid themselves of all Russian influence, start treating Israel as the talented little brother it really is, do something sensible to make all their refugees happy again, and quiet down all those fanatics among themselves who want war.

The war in the Middle East is a personal matter between the Arabs and Israel. Only they can solve it between themselves.

Palestine, the country which twenty years ago justly belonged to the Arabs, Israel has justly earned today by bravely holding on to it for twenty years through all kinds of storms and incredible hurricanes.

The only guilty rascals and scoundrels in the war are those who want it, support it or profit by it. Israel and the Arabs should fight these instead of each other.

23.5. Alexander Nevsky was one of the finest Russians ever. He lived for his people only, died for them like a hero, became rightly one of their greatest saints and also one of their too few good and honourable leaders. His glory gave the Russians a most valuable sparkle of hope, which would last until Stalin degraded, insulted and deformed the picture of his memory. Stalin disgracefully called him a politician when he was nothing but an artist and a true Russian saint.

He was the Henry V of Russia or even more. He gave glory and beauty to Novgorod and Kiev, a glory and beauty which I hope will last forever.

24.5. Always listen to your fellow-being. Do not talk to him more than you listen to him.

25.5. Invulnerable are those who can not hurt or injure others.

The worst activity is inactivity.

Anything is better than nothing.

The great fools of history were always great artists.

Never let anything keep you away from living your life and forwarding in it your love.

27.5. Your love is the finest thing in the world, and the noblest, and also the simplest. It is your core. It is what you sense and feel when, for example, you fall in love, or see a beautiful piece of art which offers you sensations, or when you happen to something else of absolute wonderfulness. Your love is your atmosphere, your feelings, your ideals and your memories. A beautiful dream comes directly from your love, and so does a wonderful idea. Your love is what you live for, and your love is what you apply to create a wonderful future.

Everything belonging to your love is, like your love in itself, invincible. Nothing can kill or harm your love; instead the world is full of things which can increase it.

Everything beautiful is invincible, because it is part of someone's love. The beauty of the world can never be destroyed: its matter can be dissolved, but its spirit remains forever, invincibly, in the hearts of human beings and souls. A beautiful Madonna created by Raphael can never be demolished: the picture of it will always remain alive in the hearts and souls of those who love it.

Your love, everyone's love, is invincible, and everything you touch with it becomes in no time invincible too. Your love is your magic stick: you can do anything with it which is lovable.

Bless everyone with your love. Bless the world and all living things with your love, and they will all become even more immortal and sacred than they ever were before. Waste your love, your feelings and your atmosphere on everyone; spend it boundlessly in the world on everything which delights you, and you will see for yourself the miracle of miracles occur: it all becomes alive and invincible in you forever.

Love is creation. Love is happiness. Love is charm, colours and beauty. Everything good is the result of love.

Love created the world. Love created me. Love created every life which ever existed for you to see. Love made Shakespeare. Love made Mozart. Love made Greece, England and the forever existent Paradise.

Your love and my love is what we live for. We live to recreate it, increase it and with delight enjoy and admire it. Love is me, love is you, and love is your brother, your uncle, and every being to be.

Live for your love, enjoy your love; do everything possible to increase it. Your love is all that ever mattered in the world to you and anyone. Love is the origin of life and all the life that ever was and is to be. Love is the impulse that sets everything alight with the golden sparkle that sets the whole universe ablaze with light. Love separates light from darkness and remains a light for ever and all the joy there is to be. It is the essence of divinity, of life and of creation. It is the purpose and meaning and eternity of life.

Love is all there ever was to it.

Editor's note.)

5.6. To trust is to love. Those who can not be trusted are unreliable because they can not trust others: they can not love.

9.6. Sometimes it happens, that a sensible person drastically and with great vigour speaks his mind in a great matter. By those who have studied the matter thoroughly and are very inactive about it, he is answered, that he should be quiet, because he doesn't know anything about it. By saying this, these people are actually saying: "We don't want to listen."

Sometimes a person standing outside the mess sees the mess more clearly as a whole than those who are deeply involved and entangled in it.

13.7. The more power you have, the more you are able to serve, and the more humble you should become in relation to your fellow-beings.

What counts in a work of art is its spirit. A work of art should never be judged from anything else but its spirit alone.

The creation of a spirit is the highest creation of all.

Man's only enemy ever was and is ignorance.

15.7. Those who succumb to pain do not lack courage, but they do lack character.

The more you believe in violence, the madder you are.

Anger is never excusable. Becoming angry is always to wrong oneself.

Never listen to an angry person. Never pay attention to him or her. They never mean what they say.

It is the same thing with every single sort of antagonism. Violent, aggressive and hostile people never mean what they say. Anger is sheer madness.

The more you are aware of your soul and your self, the more you have character, the more you are able to accept and brace, and the more seldom you become the victim of your self-destructive ire.

16.7. My Earth - what planet in the universe is more beautiful, more rare and more lovable than you? What is all this silly nonsense about your being in danger of getting blown up? Who are those creeping animals saying, "aprËs-nous le dÈluge"? Who is so ignorant, that he does not care about Earth, its treasures, its wonderful wealth of wild-life and nature, its enormous fantastic past and its enormous fantastic future?

Earth is one single masterpiece of art. It shines with sparkling colours more brilliantly and beautifully than the greatest suns and supernovas. What history could possibly be more brilliant and colourful than that of the Earth? What artists could possibly be greater and more admirable? What planet in the universe was ever more beloved than our own eternally belauded Earth?

Earth is here to stay. Such a gem like our mother Earth, with her universal nature and all her unique characteristics, can in no possible way ever perish.

17.7. The most wonderful and enjoyable thing in the world to do is to live.

The journey of one's own life is the most fantastic and marvellous journey there is in existence. Each new day is an undiscovered continent.

Nothing matters, nothing ever mattered, and nothing will ever matter, except love.

I define love as one's own good feelings.

Mankind, unite!

Love is always unexpected.

Therefore it is always the most baffling and astonishing thing.

A man who forgives and accepts anything and everything has only good memories.

A man understands his fellow-being and himself to the same degree.

If you don't understand your brother or your father-in-law, you don't understand yourself.

18.7. Agreements can be harmful, whether they are small or great. A small agreement could be two persons speaking about a third and agreeing on the point, that he has certain faults. A greater agreement could be Russia and America agreeing to bomb China.

Agreements that do not contain anything good are always more harmful than you think. Never agree with anything until you know for certain it is good to do so.

Never bother about people who won't listen to you. Don't try to make them listen to reason. If they ignore you, you shall ignore them.

Who knows? Maybe our planet really is the only living planet in the universe?

If that is the case, we are both more lonely than we think and more splendid than we think.

Social problems do not exist. Each man has his own individual problems, and he can solve them only by himself, and no other problems exist in the world.

Each man creates his own individual problems, and he has no problems but these. If he does not or is unable to solve them, which he very seldom is, he needs help.

I have always been afraid of all kinds of people. People whom I have loved as good friends I have feared to disappoint or to be disappointed by. People whom I have not known I have feared that they might have bad opinions and false thoughts about me. Female people, whom I have always fallen in love with, I have feared to be expecting things from me. People who think they know me without really doing so I always fear insults from.

Only people who have been perfectly at ease with me, and who have regarded me as nothing but a good friend, I have been able to trust completely, to be completely natural with, and not to have the slightest fear of.

19.7. What mankind needs is a leading star, whose light and genius is great enough to fill everyone with new life and inspiration, new interest in the world and in life, new great discoveries and developments, perhaps means to get to Mars and Andromeda. Mankind needs someone to keep the party going, someone like the Buddha, Alexander of Macedonia or Augustus. The light of someone is needed whose genius is bright enough to keep everyone away from boredom, which is the first step towards destruction, suicide and chaos.

A star is needed to guide the world forwards once more.

What mankind also needs is a new world to discover.

Used not the rightest way, love can sometimes be upsetting.

From the time they have shown themselves capable of having their own thoughts, you should treat and love your children as nothing but very good friends.

20.7. A man is as great as his dreams.

24.7. In his essay "A Glance at Two Books", Joseph Conrad touches upon a very interesting subject: two different kinds of authors. There are those of the first kind, who easily write just to express themselves, their thoughts and their considerations. Then there are those of the second kind, to whom Conrad belongs, who write to create beauty out of existing ugliness. "To find beauty, grace, charm in the bitterness of truth is a graver task."

Never speak more than you listen. In a congregation of, let us say, a hundred people, you should listen a hundred times more than you speak, because everyone has as much to say as you.

Your words are never more important than you consider the words of others.

I am afraid, that endowed people who can not think often become extremists. They are talented barbarians.

Too often in too many countries, only the least respectable people bother to become politicians. Some autocracies are already genuine kakistocracies.

The future of the world lies in the hands of the artists.

26.7. The world is tortured by ignorance, and its scream of pain is violence.

Sex is just a way of expressing love, just as words are just a way of expressing thoughts. You can love without sex, just as you can think without words. And sometimes one's thoughts are too lofty and serene to be properly expressed in words, just as sometimes one's love for another human being is too great and immense to be properly expressed only by the means of sex.

Some people have found me "sexually attractive". I abhor that idea. People may love me but never sexually, for I have never wanted to debase anyone by loving her only sexually.

How tragic everything is! In every person's face you can find tragedy upon tragedy; and the greater and nobler the person is, the more numerous and obvious and beautiful are the tragedies in his eyes.

Every person who possesses thoughts of his own know what tragedies are, and I can but think that every such man consider them the most beautiful things in the world. "How tragic everything is!" everyone thinks and loves the thought.

27.7. Underestimate someone, and he will revolt against you.

If you have the habit of underestimating others, which you probably have, then you also have the habit of underestimating yourself. Free yourself of both.

A marriage shatters when too much significance is attached to its sexual life. Real love does not die. It is eternal.

30.7. "Perpetual levity must end in ignorance." - Dr Johnson.

Happiness is love. You can give it, have it and enjoy it every day of your life if you want to; all you have to do is to find it. It is found by digging and by forever throwing away all the soil and dirt that covers it. It is a hard labour, but until it is finished it is the most important work in the world for you to do.

Good luck!

31.7. One's only real friends are those who have infinite trust in you and who are trusted by you completely. Their houses and hearts are always open to you, just like your house and your heart always is open to them.

Such a friendship between people is one of the loveliest things in the world. It is built and kept by carefulness and consideration.

The least indiscretion shown to a good friend of yours will give him a wound deeper than the Grand Canyon.

"Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it." - Dr Johnson.

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." - Dr Johnson.

To think is perhaps the most wonderful occupation of all.

1.8. The world is a dirty, ugly, degraded, ignorant and very unpleasant place to stay at. It is in every way foul, rough and unfriendly, and everyone stays in it just to suffer and die. The world is truly abominable in almost every conceivable sense.

But in this snake-pit, in minute nooks and crannies, between the mountains of filth and debasement, there are small white flowers surviving after all, and they never die. They are the flowers of beauty and construction. They are the arts, the ancient Greece, the universities, the happy families, the great geniuses, Venice, Rome and the past glory of London. They are the good things of the world. They are the products of love. They are quite small, childish people trample on them, spit on them and even try to destroy them; but they shine with an ever lingering light, and they alone will in the end be worth living for; on one day in a very distant future they alone will appear in all their magnificent glory as the only light and meaning of life.

2.8. Shame on me if I ever gave anyone a bad impression.

Never own your children. They are nothing else but a couple of common fellow-beings, and from their tenth birthday you should treat them only like friends. If you do so, they will never revolt against you.

Healthy youths only revolt when their freedom is inhibited by the ownership of their parents.

Give your children their own lives to live. Don't try to suit their lives to yours. It will never work.

Knowledge is very peculiar. The more you know, the more you understand how very small your knowledge is. And if you know just a little, you think you know everything.

The more knowledge you attain, the more knowledge is left for you to attain.

No one can judge your faults but yourself, and no one can judge your merits but your fellow-beings.

People isolate themselves by backbiting each other. The source of all splits are backbiters. Beware of them, and never listen to them.

The Jews are the most persecuted people in the world, because they have throughout twenty centuries constantly been backbitten.

Had no one ever backbitten anyone, the world of today would be paradisaical: it would consist of a united humanity.

3.8. Capitalists and communists are all of the same sort: pure idiots. Capitalism is excessive dependence on property, and communism is excessive rejection of property. Both are very irrational and lead nowhere.

People of the eastern world consider all people in the west capitalists, and westerners think that all in the east are communists. Both notions are of course very wrong. Only a few communists live in the east, and only very few capitalists live in the west. 80 percent of mankind are good honest people who belong to neither madness.

What I call real capitalists and communists are those who actually practise their stupid beliefs. Only fools are hungry for property, and only more fools see any danger in it.

There is only one danger in life: to get overwhelmed by it and stuck in it. That danger I have found is easily swept away by love. Never allow yourself to get lost in life. Always look forward, always keep your future within sight with expectations, always strive to reach the ultimate goal of becoming able to accept absolutely nothing.

Do never become an artist unless you feel it as your duty.

4.8. The most important time of your life is your future.

Every individual has his own philosophy. This diary contains mine. It is but another bucket of water into the infinitely vast and beautiful ocean.

5.8. Sex is not an ugly language, but it is a base language. It is the love-language of the primitive.

Only very few people are not primitive.

The backbone of society are those admirable people who own sense. Sense is the power to see and to do what is right.

Right is what makes everyone happy. Wrong is what makes one or a number of people unhappy.

If you do something which turns ninety-nine people happy and the hundredth person unhappy, be certain that that thing was not the right thing to do. Only what turns exactly no one unhappy is right.

The most naÔve men who ever lived were Buddha and Christ. NaÔvety has always worked wonders with men, and so it always will.

What does it matter if people harm and hurt you? As long as you do not harm and hurt them, you have no reason to be gloomy.

Always criticize yourself excessively. You need it.

7.8. You never have any right to criticize anything or anyone except yourself.

When you find something or someone else criticisable than yourself, it is quite certain that you do not know all about it or him or her.

Shakespeare's Sonnets is perhaps the finest treasure of all lying in the flower-spread golden meadow of human literature.

The value of Venice is inconceivably immeasurable. It was created during nine centuries into being the world's most beautiful queen among cities, and such a queen we can not afford to lose.

Venice must be saved, and its houses and canals must all be repaired soon and at any cost. It is the whole world's business and responsibility to save the drowning grand lady.

Make her a free port, stop the dangerous dirty outflow of waste from the industries, halt the pollutions, and crown our queen of the Mediterranean once more with jewels.

If you are worried, keep it to yourself. The most efficient way to worry others is to worry about them openly.

12.8. Sorrows, troubles, death, ruins and disasters are things without any meaning at all. Nothing is significant but love, so do not engage in things that are not lovable.

Always fight your ignorance with your heart and soul. It is your only enemy in the world.

When you notice some fault in your fellow-being, check yourself at once and look into your own soul for the same fault, and you will find it. You think about others what you dare not think about yourself.

17.8. You only fail to understand what you in your heart do not want to understand. And this is your supreme fault.

Never be afraid of overrating. It was never done by anyone, and neither will it ever be.

But a thing that was always committed by everyone was the act of underestimating.

Nothing was ever overestimated. Everything was always underrated.

The most beautiful roads are those not too broad ones and not too trafficked ones with natural green living walls and roofs, which the sunlight quietly sieves through. Such roads I have only seen in England.

18.8. In the world there is only one thing which I truly hate, and that is ignorance. I hate that ignorance which makes people laugh and giggle at the death of Calvero in "Limelight", which makes people turn off "Der letzte Mann" in the television to have a look at "Peyton Place" instead in another channel, which makes people turn off the radio because Brahms is playing, and which makes people rate professions only according to their income.

And nothing ever made me angry but ignorance gone too far.

If you know you are ignorant you are not ignorant. Only those who are ignorant about their being ignorant are truly ignorant.

21.8. A suicide is someone who thinks he has lost his future. He sees nothing in his future, so he finds no reason to continue his existence.

What he should do to avoid the temptation of death is to create another future instead of the lost one. I have gone through that process a hundred times.

The voice is only able to express one twentieth of what the spirit wishes to say.

A letter is a slight bit better: it expresses a fifth.

If you are ever disillusioned, create new illusions. Without illusions no man can live.

Only grief is not always vanity. But emotions of misery, sorrow, pity and worry are always tokens of excessive vanity.

23.8. Every person has a good side and a bad side. His good side consists of qualities, and his bad side consists of absence of qualities and slight madnesses. Look into yourself only for your bad sides and into others only for their good ones. Thus you will notice what qualities you lack, your slight madnesses you will be able to control, and if you carry on like this you will find yourself suddenly becoming better as a man.

To become better is each man's highest dream. The only one who can make him better is himself.

26.8. About half of mankind believe in the transmigration of souls, and about the other half believe in God. Personally I believe in both.

Very few people are materialists and naturalists, believing in nothing. They seem to be more than they actually are.

Always remember, that whenever you see something wrong and complainable in your environment, the wrong is in you yourself and not in what you think.

A man owning that wonderful thing called common sense lives in perfect harmony with his environment, no matter how disagreeable it is. He considers it ugly only when he himself is ugly, and he disagrees with it only when he himself is disagreeable. He wants to change it only when he ought to change himself.

27.8. Reality is what always surprises you by never being what you expect.

30.8. Never depreciate anyone. To do so is a black crime. No one was ever worth depreciating.

You have only the right to depreciate yourself - none other.

Every person living, in your house or in Papua, is your own spiritual brother or sister, whether you like it or not. It is your duty to treat them according to what they are, and they are never worse than you.

31.8. Self-criticism is nothing but watching one's own steps. And not knowing how you are going is not knowing that you are alive.

The individual is the only important thing in the world.

Some people treat all music the second way. These people are ignorant.

Others treat only the worst music the first way. These are very ignorant too.

Classical music by the great masters should always be treated the first respectable way, simply because there is no other way to understand it.

Never judge a man from anything but his personality. His personality is his only property and characteristic of any importance.

The art of philosophy is just a hobby of mine: it is pleasant and amusing to write down the ideas which suddenly pops into your head.

2.9. Beethoven enjoyed cudgelling his listeners with his music. But even more he loved caressing them.

To evolve, develop, improve, purify and refine yourself is the most wonderful thing you can do.

And the way to do it is to work - as creatively as possible.

5.9. Don't worry about your body. Life is but one moment long even if you live for two hundred years.

A life that is so rich, though, that it continues to influence mankind even after its conclusion, is very long.

Crazy people like "the true Communists of China and Albania" do usually scream. Therefore you notice them more than you should.

Politics is the game of ruthlessness. Art is the game of love. They will never mix without killing each other, and art will never be able to die.

An artist who is active politically is mad and therefore not an artist. It is impossible for an artist to engage in politics without losing his art, while political power is always lost anyway.

A man who knows the whole history of the world in detail has 5000 years of experience.

People who do not like philosophy do not like to plunge into their own minds. I quite understand them.

7.9. The happy families are the backbone of the world.

My imagination is what always kept me going forward. It has saved my life more than five hundred times, and I still regard it as my most elementary quality.

What I can not understand is why not everyone is aware of the glory of their imagination. What makes people despise, disregard, disown and even distrust the finest quality they ever had and ever will have!

Learn how to regard everything as beautiful, even your own tragic fate and your most solemn situations. Regard everything as beautiful, and you will never find life unpleasant.

Don't ever be angry with anyone except yourself. You are the only cause of everything that disturbs you.

I don't at all fancy the idea of people reading this private diary of mine, but in what other way will they ever understand my fate?

It is quite possible that I am one of the vainest people who ever lived. Everyone who ever tried to make people understand him was truly vain and presumptuous.

8.9. All people are good. But there are four kinds of good people: those who are entirely good, those who are good and bad and want to get rid of their badness, those who are good and bad and do not care, and those who think they are entirely bad. The first group is the largest. The other three need help. The fourth group is the smallest.

The world has never changed through the eternities except minutely for the better. The dinosaurs had the same problems as we are having today. Rebels, revolutionaries and radicals have always existed and will probably always exist, because I doubt that they will ever realize that all their tough fights are but vanities. The only ones who ever succeeded in changing the world were those who did not try.

Everything is vain, useless and wasted except one thing, and that is love. Love was the only thing that ever mattered, and so it can but always be. Only love did ever change the world for the better, and only love will ever do anything good at all anywhere. Only two things exist: love and emptiness. Everything is but love and emptiness. Emptiness is empty; love alone can accomplish anything.

The story of my life is very simple. I was born, i suffered, and then I discovered why I suffered: I was ignorant. So I searched for a way of getting rid of my ignorance. I found it, and here I am with a wasted life.

Funny, isn't it?

Each man creates his life according to his own wishes. It has always been so and it will always be so. If a man leads a poor life, he has created it himself: therefore you shall leave him alone. Leave everyone alone who does not beg for help. Only those who actually begged for help did ever really need it.

And all those who want to recreate the world because it isn't good enough should actually recreate themselves, because the first thing wanting in the world is themselves.

There is an old Chinese proverb, that if you save someone's life, you are responsible for that life for the rest of your life. That is crooked Chinese logic. If, for instance, you save someone from committing suicide and that person tries to commit it again, you can not be held responsible for his suicide.

No one is ever responsible for your life with everything in it including all the dramas of all its relationships except yourself.

The army relieved me of having to do my military service. I can't believe that it's actually true. I thought the sky was for ever cloudy, and suddenly I look up and find a clear blue heaven with a brilliant sun shining, just for me. I can't believe it.

And quite suddenly I respect Sweden.

The more clearly you see the people around you, the more considerate you are towards them. The less considerate you are towards them, the blinder you are.

This century is indeed the most remarkable one in history. Never has man been more tremendous, more numerous and more threatened by graver dangers.

And every single misery of his is just his own fault.

The high cultures of the earth were, to go from the present to the past, the English world (America and Britain, 1700- ,) the Italian world (1300-1600), the Byzantine world (300-1200), the Roman world (200 B.C.-300 A.D.), Greece (1500-200 B.C.), Egypt, Chaldea, and then follows the foggy unknown past.

One of my favourite imaginatively constructed theories is about the cultures that existed before Chaldea. I imagine they were India (about 10,000-6000 B.C.), and before that I love to think that Atlantis existed, about 12,000 years B.C.

We don't know anything about the high cultures before the great Deluge (around 4000 B.C.) of Noah, since that Deluge evidently destroyed all previous civilizations of the world. The fact that this Deluge recurs in the most ancient chronicles of both Egypt and Chaldea is evidence enough of its existence.

Was China a great prehistoric culture? Hardly. The Chinese have always notoriously overestimated their own significance and exaggerated their ancient history. It was a bloody tyranny from the beginning (three centuries B.C.) and hasn't changed since then.

If Atlantis existed, which it must have done, I imagine in my mind that it could have existed in the South Pacific somewhere around the seas of Tahiti and Samoa. The last remains could be the stone giants of Easter Island. I imagine it as a very heavenly paradise, and if it really existed it was perhaps the loveliest paradise the world ever owned.

The usual theory is the Atlantic, while it is more probable that it could have been situated in the Indian Ocean between India and Madagascar.

So there are only three oceans of the world to search.

Life is one long adventure given to you to explore, enjoy and make something of.

10.9. If you are eating food that tastes unpleasantly, do not criticize it until you have finished it.

To criticize it while you are still eating it is a very inconsiderate and impolite thing to do. It is the rudest possible act against the cook.

To see oneself in the past as a fool is a very good indication.

It is very natural to be interested in what you are ignorant about. Such an interest must always be gratified.

Nothing is nobler in man than a wish to become better.

Why is nobody reading James Hilton today? He is one of the finest authors of this century.

Your very best friend is the one who knows and understands you so perfectly, that he has nothing to say to you.

Such supreme friends are extremely rare.

I believe that everyone is, and I treat everyone as an immortal son of God, because that suits my conscience.

Your conscience is always right whatever ideas it puts into your head.

It has been said, that the distance between genius and insanity is very brief. Now there are two kinds of insanity: the real insanity, which is actual madness, and the phoney insanity, which is mere endowment too high to be understood.

For instance, the artists of Russia are not insane although the government takes them to asylums. The government only consider them insane, because it doesn't understand them.

An example: "It is a complicating factor, that the person who is mentally ill might well seem to be perfectly well." - Soviet Psychiatry.

12.9. A human being consists of vanity and love. Everything consists but of vanity and love. Vanity always disappears, dies and is never anything except nothing. Love, though, always survives, always continues, and will never be able to even in the slightest way decrease.

13.9. The life of a sane ordinary man is a balance between ups and downs: he has as many ups as he has downs, and the greater the downs, the greater the ups.

Man tends to wish an increase of the magnitude of his ups. He generally succeeds in increasing them, but then he is shocked by the fact that he also managed to increase the magnitude and depth of his downs.

The downs of a person's life are usually moments of boredom, inactivity, discontent and not knowing what to do. If they did not exist, the ups would not exist either.

A life of no ups and no downs is a life of ignorance. The more and the greater the ups and downs, the more knowledge you get about life, and the more interesting, dramatic and intense it becomes.

So never be afraid of the challenges of life. They are always interesting, and they always teach you something new and valuable, if you only bother to get through them and survive them.

14.9. The economical situation of my future is rather dark - father refuses to keep me alive after the 1st of November.

And it is quite impossible for me to live as anything else than as an artist. To become an artist was all I ever cared for.

Of course, one can dispute his right to refuse to maintain me, since I am not yet of age, but I can not change his mind.

Conservatism is beautiful and lovable, but from one point of view it is also dangerous: so many people get stuck in it.

Never get stuck in your love. Your love is your finest treasure, but to get stuck in it is to stop it from growing.

The finest kind of music is that which consists of both voices and an orchestra, for instance the opera, the oratorium, the mass, the Passion and the Requiem.

Responsibility is a rather unpopular word. And irresponsibility is a rather unknown word: few know what it really is.

Irresponsibility is a malady which today almost everyone suffers from. It is lack of life. The more responsible you feel for your life, the more you can do with it and for others in it. There are three things which responsibility consists of: knowledge, awareness, and love.

Life is nought but an endless search for good experience. But why is that search worth while? Good experience is the thing which makes your love grow and increase.

The cruellest of all human fates I can but believe that is the one of being forced to do nothing.

15.9. Tea and chocolate is a most dreadful combination.

I hate forceful music. The best music is the gentle melodious one which does not desperately try to make itself noticeable.

Deafening music is only great when it has the overwhelming godlike spirit of a man like Beethoven.

16.9. An hour or two of good conversation is the most delicious food a spirit can dream of.

In my childhood I was spoilt - that is why I have today reached nowhere. I was not spoilt by my parents, of course, but by no one else except myself.

17.9. Never expect anyone to recognize you when you sit in a car. The windows reflect so much that you can impossibly be clearly discerned.

18.9. The foulest and ugliest thing of all is foul, ugly art. It is seen today practically everywhere in the world in the shape of modern buildings, modern art, modern music and modern political literature. And the most terrifying piece of foul, ugly art of all is the modern city. A more horrid example of supreme ghastliness of art was never witnessed by the world.

Before the First World War the world belonged to its lovers. Today it still belongs to its lovers, but they no longer have any power. The mad screams of the naturalists, the communists and the violent extremists have drowned all the gentler voices; almost nothing is heard in the air today but most nonsensical noise.

To tear down a beloved house or building is to commit murder.

19.9. The thought that the oceans are dying is totally unbearable. Imagine a world without fish, without dolphins, without porpoises, without penguins, without albatrosses, without seals, without any fishermen and without any oysters. Imagine a world with only dead and dirty oceans. How terrible a thought!

And yet Costeau tells us, that only during the last 20 years, 40% of all life in the oceans has perished.

And the fault is all ours.

20.9. The most wonderful thing about people is that each one of them has his very own individuality and personality. Each person has a sense of humour entirely of his own, problems entirely of his own and an imagination entirely of his own. Two spiritually exactly identical human beings I do not believe that can exist.

21.9. The human soul consists of three qualities: sense, love and imagination. These three powers are always equally strong. None of them is ever greater than the others, and when one of them increases and grows, the other two do the same.

Sense is, among other things, experience, awareness, knowledge, understanding and observation. Imagination is the ability to create and construct. Love is the ability to - well, - to love.

As I said, the three are always equally great.

22.9. The pleasure of giving lies in the fact that what you give is generally something of your own.

Those who are not poor usually regard wealth as a bore.

Material wonderfulness is only wonderful when you haven't quite got it.

The difficulties and hardships of life are only wonderful as long as you are able to overcome them.

What a blessing to the world that persons like James Boswell sometimes appear! Without messengers from Paradise, how would we know about its wonders?

23.9. I will now say what no one has ever said before.

What joy that the world is so corrupt! What joy that evil exists, that no one understand each other, that life is but a misery!

If there was nothing of all this, whatever would there be in the world to do?

A very important thing in raising children is respect. Children should always be respected by you more than you by them. Parents who do not respect their children are not respectable as parents.

One of the finest things a person can become is a great conversationalist.

25.9. I dislike concertos written for virtuosos merely to show off their skills. If I should write a concerto, I would not care about anything except its beauty. Beauty ranks high above skill. To play music beautifully is a thousand times more difficult than to play it faultlessly. Therefore a violinist with beauty in his bow is much greater and more honourable than a skilful one. Anyone can acquire skill, while those are very few who know how to acquire beauty.

Of course, the greater the skill, the greater the ease with which you express the beauty within you.

The only thing in life worth living for is love and beauty. They are actually the same thing.

Whenever you hear or read something which is uncomfortable and unpleasant, make very sure that it isn't true before you attack it.

A token of supreme folly is the act of giving something up.

26.9. The greatest honour and compliment you can pay to music is listening to it.

30.9. The finest thing a composer can create is a living melody.

3.10 The most wonderful thing about life is perhaps that perfection does not exist. There will always remain new grounds for you to gain, new knowledge for you to attain, more love for you to acquire and more improvements for you to make. Contentment is but an illusion, and ends do not exist.

Everything is part of the eternal infinity, and therefore everything is infinite.

4.10. In the fourth movement of Schubert's ninth (actually tenth) symphony, the thirds are really exceedingly funny. I almost killed myself with laughter the first time I heard them. I can't understand Mendelssohn's anger when his musicians laughed rehearsing them.

Music can actually sometimes even be comical, you know. Another example of comic music, not as exceedingly amusing as the thirds of Schubert's last symphonic movement but next to it, is the beginning of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Seventh. They say he was drunk composing it, but I think he just had a tremendous lot of fun.

My music has a fine sound when I play it, but on paper it looks ridiculous. That is why I am of the opinion, that only the ear can rightly umpire music.

What you see with your own eyes is always true. Never doubt your own actual experience.

Have as a goal in life to always double your experience. A double experience is a double life.

If you are fifty years old and have fifty years of experience, double that experience. It is always easily done. Thus, at perhaps sixty years of age, you will have a hundred years of experience. And then, if you double that, you will at the age of seventy have two hundred years of experience. And so forth.

A man who starts doubling his experience at twenty years of age will at the age of fifty have the wisdom of a man of an age of seven hundred years.

Kill your laziness. It's not worth spending a life-time on.

7.10. Every single human being worries too much. There is nothing in the world to worry about, and there never was. Life is a cake which tastes bad only because you are stupid enough to pepper it.

8.10. The difference between the two languages called English and American is, according to some people, that English is one of the world's finest languages, and American is one of the world's ugliest.

Does American then really have to sound so ugly and vulgar? The only defence for the American tongue is that a London cockney can sound a lot worse.

The sixteenth century was one of our world's very finest. Suddenly the whole world was filled with life and spirit. It was the apex of the Renaissance.

The seventeenth was perhaps even finer. The Baroque is maybe the most beloved of all periods of art.

The eighteenth century was also a flowery one. No clothes were, I think, more beautiful than those of this era.

The nineteenth century started well with the Romantic age, but then what happened? Naturalism and industrialism devoured the world, consuming it and depriving it of all beauty. They are devouring it still.

The twentieth century is so far the bloodiest in history. Mankind can only survive if they quietly change their course.

Man's supreme fault is his dependence on matter, time and money. He should have them, of course, but he should not be so desperately dependant on them.

One of the very finest categories of people are those who through the centuries devote themselves to taking care of culture, whatever cataclysms and catastrophes occur now and then. I mean the monks of the Middle Ages, the librarians, the professors, the quiet sages who spend their lives keeping knowledge and art alive, making it survive in spite of all, just for the benefit of mankind.

Others you can only judge by their merits. By his wrongs you can judge no one but yourself.

9.10. Only fools are base enough to judge a great artist politically.

Artists are condemnable if they allow themselves to sink so deep as to become actively engaged in politics. They are then no longer artists but base detestable politicians. As long as they stay outside, though, watching and describing the chaos soundly, they are free of all guilt and should not be maltreated or in any way disrespected as artists.

For an artist to become involved in religion is almost as bad and rotten as politics. Both fields require biassed and limited outlooks, which you