Hyperion / Empedokles Quotes

“Oh, you wretches who feel all this, who, even as I,
cannot allow yourselves to speak of man’s being
here for a purpose, who, even as I, are so utterly
in the clutch of the Nothing that governs us, so
profoundly aware that we are born for nothing,
that we love a nothing, believe in nothing, work
ourselves to death for nothing only that little by
little we may pass over into nothing – how can I
help it if your knees collapse when you think of it
seriously? Many a time have I, too, sunk into these
bottomless thoughts, and cried out: Why do you lay
the axe to my root, pitiless spirit? – and still I am
here.”
― Friedrich HölderlinHölderlin , Hyperion / Empedokles