The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
124.
_In the Horizon of the Infinite._—We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the land behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes against the walls of this cage! Alas, if homesickness for the land should attack thee, as if there had been more _freedom_ there,—and there is no "land" any longer!
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.