June 24
I feel I am going to be reconciled with poetry. It could not be otherwise: I can only think of myself.
The abdication of Charles V is the moment in history dearest to my heart. I have literally lived in Yuste in the company of the gouty emperor.
I have aspired for a long time to give up the “conversation of creatures”, but nevertheless succeed only rarely, fitfully, and regretfully.
I fortify myself with the contempt that people are pleased to dispense to me, and I ask for only one mercy: to be nothing in their eyes.
The Book according to my soul: an Imitation without Jesus.
Success does not inevitably call for success; but failure always calls for failure. Destiny is a word that only has meaning in misfortune.
Powers of Heaven! how I long for the time that one could invoke you, would not exclaim into the void, indeed that the void did not even exist.