
“The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever.”
Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 1
St. 9
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/
Context: All hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
“The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever.”
Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 1
Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 535.
The Clod and the Pebble, st. 3
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)
Source: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Manuscript, Sermons; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 354.
Section 100
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.
Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 60
Context: I have come to understand that the self, my self, is inherently sacred. By virtue of its own improbability, its own miracle, its own emergence … And so I lift up my head, and I bear my own witness, with affection and tenderness and respect. And in so doing, I sanctify myself with my own grace.
“Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.”