Guillaume

“an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground

“Conversation between Siddhartha, who has temporarily given up all worldly possessions in order to experience total poverty first hand, talks to a merchant.

That seems to be the way of things. Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that" (said Siddhartha)

Ah, but if you are without possessions, how can you give?"

Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instructions, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish."

Very well and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give(the merchant asks of Siddhartha)

I can think, I can wait, I can fast."

Is that all?"

I think that is all."

And of what use are they? For example, fasting, what good is that?"

It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But, as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Therefore, fasting is useful, sir.”
― Siddhartha

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never by conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man’s meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.”
― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate