Marcel Schwob

Destroy all good and all evil. Their ruins are the same

Destroy the old dwellings of man and the old dwellings of the soul; what is dead is a distorting mirror.

Destroy, for all creation comes from destruction.

And for higher benevolence you must annihilate lower benevolence. And thus new good appears saturated with evil.

And to imagine a new art you must break its forebears. And thus new art seems a sort of iconoclasm.

And souls shed past forms as snakes slough their skins.

And the patient collectors of old snakeskins sadden the young snakes, for they hold a magical power over them

And that is why snakes slough their skins in the verdant trench of a deep thicket; and once a year the young gather in a circle to burn the old skins

And Monelle said again: I shall speak to you of the gods.

Let old gods die; sit no longer like a mourner beside their tombs;

For old gods vanish from their sepulchres

Look: each moment is a cradle and a casket: may all life and all death seem strange and new to you.

Organize not your life by means of drawings made with the white halves. For if you do, you shall find thereafter drawings made with the black halves

Resist not nature. Press not the feet of your soul against things. May your soul not avert its gaze, like a child who has done wrong.