The only land where kings exist. Why go into exile? Why not grow older and more mature in this land? . . . Why get used to what others believe? Is there any more truth in that than in what one had believed with one’s initial, strong child-faith? I can still remember . . . each thing having a particular meaning, and there were countless things. And none was worth more than any other. Justice reigned over them. There was a period when each thing seemed to be the only one, when every single one could become one’s fate: a bird that flew in the night and now was sitting, dark and serious, in my favorite tree; a summer rain that transformed the garden so that all of its greenery seemed glazed with darkness and gleam; a book where a flower had been placed among the leaves, god knows by whom; a pebble of strange, interpretable shape: all of this was as if one knew much more of it than the grown-ups. It seems as if with each thing one could become happy and big but also as if one could perish on each thing . . .

This is finally true: deep on the inside everyone is like a church, and the walls are adorned with festive frescoes. In earliest childhood, when this magnificence is still exposed, it is too dark inside to see the images, and then, while the hall is gradually reached by light, adolescent foolishness and its false longings and thirsting shame set in and cover up wall after wall. Some people advance quite far into and through life without suspecting the original magnificence underneath the sober poverty. But blessed is he who senses, finds, and secretly recovers it. He presents himself with a gift. And he will return home to himself.

Parents should never want to teach us life; for they teach us their life.

In light of the current state of affairs, one can certainly say that good parents as much as bad parents, and good schools as much as bad schools, are in the wrong with regard to the child. They all fundamentally misrecognize the child by starting from the false premise of the adult who feels superior toward the child. They ought to recognize instead that the greatest individuals have always sought at specific moments to become an equal to and someone worthy of the child.

Ah, if our parents were only born with us, how much backtracking and bitterness we would be spared. But parents and children can only walk side by side, never together; there is a deep ditch between them across which they can pass to each other from time to time a little love.

Each person ought to be guided only to the point where he becomes capable of thinking by himself, working by himself, learning by himself. There are only very few great truths that one may voice in front of a group of individuals without insulting one among them: these are the only matters for school. Schools ought to think above all in terms of individuals and not in terms of grades: since life and death and fate are ultimately all intended for individuals. School needs to chart a relation to all of that, to the great and true experiences and events, if it hopes to regain its vitality.

How many children exist who later could experience life as abundant and whole, although for one reason or another they had been given nothing more on their way than “pure life.” It is not the worst thing to be given only that and then to be placed among humans: strong, productive, even great things have risen from such defenselessness, which, if one is looking for a bit of consolation, is a much more immediate part of life than the self-opinionated state of protection in which most “sheltered” children grow up finally to be poor and limited!

Every historical period is filled with a burning desire for the great individuals who are different: for they have always brought with them the future. Yet when individuality surfaces in a child it is treated disdainfully or disparagingly or possibly—which is most painful for the child—with derision. They are treated as if they had nothing that was unique to them, and the deep riches out of which they live are devalued to offer them commonplaces instead. Even if one has stopped treating adults in this way, one remains intolerant and impatient with regard to children. The right that is naturally granted to any grown-up is denied to children: to have their own opinion. All of contemporary education amounts to an unending battle with the child in which both parties finally resort to the most reprehensible means.