Vinzenzo

“Fame wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for education. It’s only of concern to schoolteachers. Oh no, we are not talking about fame, but what I call eternity. Believers call it the kingdom of God. The way I see it, all of us more demanding people, those of us who long for something better and have that one dimension too many, would be incapable of living if, apart from this world’s atmosphere, there weren’t another air to breathe; if, apart from time, eternity didn’t also exist, the kingdom of authentic life. Mozart’s music is a part of it, as are the poems of your great writers. So too are the saints who performed miracles, died as martyrs and set a great example to people. But the image of every authentic act, the strength of every authentic emotion, are just as much a part of eternity, even if nobody knows about them, witnesses them, writes them down and preserves them for posterity. There is no such thing as posterity in eternity, only contemporaneity.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“You take the old Goethe much too seriously, my young friend. You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them an injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“And the world suddenly appeared to me as such an awfully large place, with I so totally alone in it that I could have cried from the bottom of my heart.”
― Joseph von Eichendorff, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts

“Alte Wahrheiten sind und klingen nicht originell, doch es sind und bleiben Wahrheiten, und das ist die Hauptsache.”
― Erich Kästner, Als ich ein kleiner Junge war