That's the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long … - Hermann Hesse

It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are no susceptible of rational treatment. Then there are ideals such as those of the Americans or Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely. The likeness of man, once a high ideal, is in process of becoming a machinemade article. It is for madmen like us, perhaps, to ennoble it again.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.