The collection / 26 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles.

Robert Walser / quote

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02Undated

God goes with thoughtless people.

Robert Walser / quote

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03Undated

cuando se es joven hay que ser un cero a la izquierda, pues no existe nada más perjudicial que destacar pronto, prematuramente, en cualquier cosa.

Robert Walser / quote

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04Undated

Se aburren quienes se pasan la vida esperando que algo los estimule desde fuera...

Robert Walser / quote

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05Undated

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

Robert Walser / quote

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06Undated

One listens to the murmur of the soul only because of boredom.

Robert Walser / quote

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07Undated

Artists, as a rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they aren’t allowed to understand anything about it.

Robert Walser / quote

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08Undated

With the utmost love and attention the man who walks must study and observe every smallest living thing, be it a child, a dog, a fly, a butterfly, a sparrow, a worm, a flower, a man, a house, a tree, a hedge, a snail, a mouse, a cloud, a hill, a leaf, or no more than a poor discarded scrap of paper on which, perhaps, a dear good child at school has written his first clumsy letters. The highest and the lowest, the most serious and the most hilarious things are to him equally beloved, beautiful, and valuable.

Robert Walser / quote

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09Undated

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present

Robert Walser / quote

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10Undated

I feel how little it concerns me, everything that’s called "the world," and how grand and exciting what I privately call the world is to me.

Robert Walser / quote

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11Undated

I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.

Robert Walser / quote

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12Undated

He doesn’t see his path clearly, but also doesn’t consider this absolutely necessary; he strikes out in some direction or other, and one thing leads to the next. All paths lead to lives of some sort, and that’s all he requires, for every life promises a great deal and is replete with possibilities enchantingly fulfilled.

Robert Walser / quote

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13Undated

My cheeks are red hot,my lip still trembles,because I sent my heartto speak; every word of itdelusional and awkward,an exuberance, an abrupt sound.That's how I spoke, oh, it stillshows on my hot cheeksI'm now carrying home.I look down at the snowand walk past many houses,past many hedges, many trees,the snow adorns hedge, tree and house.I walk on, staring downat the snow, on my cheeksnothing but red-hot memoryreminding me of my wild talk.

Robert Walser / quote

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14Undated

After a spent day, Iwalked back in a fever.The whole way homethe sun touched my cheeks.The blissful evening glowspread across the meadowsand I called this lightthe blood I shed.My hot burning blood layconsoling the entire world.So I walked with pride--Now that all was tilled.I didn't know what was happening,I leaned against a fence post,in my blood that coveredthe meadows near and far.

Robert Walser / quote

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15Undated

The soul of the world had opened and I fantasized that everything wicked, distressing and painful was on the point of vanishing...all notion of the future paled and the past dissolved. In the glowing present, I myself glowed.

Robert Walser / quote

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16Undated

And the pine trees that smell so wonderfully of spicy power. Shall I never see a mountain pine again? Really that would be no misfortune. To forgo something: that also has its fragrance and its power.

Robert Walser / quote

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17Undated

What we understand and love understands and loves us also.

Robert Walser / quote

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18Undated

I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself.

Robert Walser / quote

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19Undated

So you, too, like fruitcake? (RW on meeting Lenin in Zurich during World War I.)

Robert Walser / quote

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20Undated

How small life is hereand how big nothingness.The sky, tired of light,has given everything to the snow.The two trees bowtheir heads to each other.Clouds cross the world’ssilence in a circle dance

Robert Walser / quote

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21Undated

The barber's assistant asks if I am a Swede. An American? Not that either. A Russian? Well, then, what are you? I love to answer such nationalistically tinted questions with a steely silence, and to leave people who ask me about my patriotic feelings in the dark. Or I tell lies and say that I'm Danish. Some kinds of frankness are only hurtful and boring.

Robert Walser / quote

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22Undated

Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I'm not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway!...You have been my body's health. Whenever I have read a book, it was you I was reading, not the book, you were the book. You were, you were.

Robert Walser / quote

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23Undated

You do see me crossing the meadowstiff and dead from the mist?I long for that home,that home I've never had,and without any hopethat I'll ever be able to reach it.For such a home, never touched,I carry that longing that willnever die, like that meadow diesstiff and dead from the mist.You do see me crossing it, full of dread?

Robert Walser / quote

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24Undated

On the whole I consider the constant need for delight and diversion in completely new things to be a sign of pettiness, lack of inner life, of estrangement from nature, and of a mediocre or defective gift of understanding.

Robert Walser / quote

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