Einsamkeit ist Unabhängigkeit, ich hatte sie mir gewünscht und mir erworben in langen Jahren. Sie war kalt, o ja, sie war aber auch still, wunderbar … - Hermann Hesse

The Speaker then brought the ring, kissed me on the cheek and placed the ring on my finger. Hardly had I looked at the ring, hardly had I felt its metallic coolness on my fingers, when a thousand things occurred to me, a thousand inconceivable acts of neglect. Above all, it occurred to me that the ring had four stones at equal distances apart, and that it was a rule of the League and part of the vow to turn the ring slowly on the finger at least once a day, and at each of the four stones to bring to mind one of the four basic precepts of the vow. I had not only lost the ring... I had also no longer repeated the four basic precepts or thought of them. Immediately, I tried to say them again inwardly...I had forgotten the rules... p. 85

Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path... But each of us - experiments of the depths - strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone.

لم يمنحوا أنفسهم وقتا و لا جهدا ليقووا أنفسهم أمام الخوف و ليقهروا في أنفسهم الخوف من الموت, بل ساروا بحياتهم مرتعدين لا يؤمنون بغد