“All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.”

Third Century, sect. 2.
Centuries of Meditations

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Thomas Traherne 16
English poet 1636–1674

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“My life carries its own meaning in itself. This meaning lies in my living out the highest idea which shows itself in my will-to-live, the idea of reverence for life. With that for a starting-point I give value to my own life and to all the will-to-live which surrounds me, I persevere in activity, and I produce values.”

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Context: Reverence for life, veneratio vitæ, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live.
In reverence for life my knowledge passes into experience. The simple world- and life-affirmation which is within me just because I am will-to-live has, therefore, no need to enter into controversy with itself, if my will-to-live learns to think and yet does not understand the meaning of the world. In spite of the negative results of knowledge, I have to hold fast to world- and life-affirmation and deepen it. My life carries its own meaning in itself. This meaning lies in my living out the highest idea which shows itself in my will-to-live, the idea of reverence for life. With that for a starting-point I give value to my own life and to all the will-to-live which surrounds me, I persevere in activity, and I produce values.

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“In that book which is
My memory…
On the first page
That is the chapter when
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Appear the words…
Here begins a new life.”

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Context: I know, Mother, you feel badly and that you would prefer to have me take some other course, if I could in conscience. Yet, Mother, I know you too well to suppose that you would wish me to turn away from what I think is my duty. I surely would not be a public speaker if I sought a life of ease, for it will be a most laborious one; nor would I do it for the sake of honor, for I know that I shall be disesteemed, even hated, by some who are now my friends, or who profess to be. Neither would I do it if I sought wealth, because I could secure it with far more ease and worldly honor by being a teacher. If I would be true to myself, true to my Heavenly Father, I must pursue that course of conduct which, to me, appears best calculated to promote the highest good of the world.

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“A stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange treasures lodg'd in this fair world appear,
Strange all and new to me;
But that they mine should be who nothing was,
That strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.”

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) English poet

"The Salutation", stanza 7; The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. 3.

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