. . . Yes, that's the way it was, that's the way your being grows with your knowledge, is clarified by it, unified by it. It is as wonderful to learn as it is to live. Don't be afraid of losing yourself in larger spirits than your own. Don't sit there anxiously brooding about the uniqueness of your soul, don't cut yourself off from what has power, out of fear that it will carry you off with it and drown your beloved, most intimate character in its mighty surge. Be confident: the uniqueness that is lost in the disassembling and re-creating during a vigorous development has only been an imperfection, merely a shoot sprouting in darkness that was unique only as long as it was sick with pallor, shunning the light. And it is the healthy part of you that you must live on, the healthy part that will become great. . .
~ Excerpt from Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885)
art via tinypic
