Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

What makes the North German is, to the contrary, the peculiar North German
mentality. The Icelander, Norwegian, Scot and in part also the Englishman are more
similar to the South German than the North German.
Contrast also in nature: the most fertile regions of Europe beside volcanoes, the
vile lava – muck of the Earth.
The older a person becomes, the more he looks into the future, not only into the
past. The child has absolutely no relationship to his future.
Is the ocean due to the rivers, or the rivers due to the ocean? Who would decide
that? So is it between God and man. The ocean wills the rivers, the river wills the
ocean.
In terms of scenery, I have the greatest sense for vistas and for the All to which
the earth expands, for the opening behind which one observes the vastness, for the
music which trumpets (Trovatore and Lohengrin, joyous arias): entry.
The solar system and the fixed star sky have a differing relationship to space. The
stars signal hither from the edge of space. It is well certain that the stars are more
moral than the sun; here there is even more (e.g. glowing heat, polychromy) flung to
nothing. The position has become even more exclusive, even narrower; and even for
that reason simultaneously wider, greater, more encompassing.
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