“When a person has arrived at a stage in life when he accepts the inevitable with equanimity, when he has tasted good and bad to the full, and has carved out for himself alongside his external life, an inner, more real and not fortuitous existence, then it seems my life has not been empty and worthless. Even if my external destiny has unfolded itself as it does with everyone, inevitably and as decreed by the gods, my inner life has been my own work, with its joys and bitterness, and I hold myself alone responsible for it.”
“…I no longer made any distinction between pleasure and pain, but one was similar to the other; both hurt and both were precious. Whether my inner life went well or badly, my discovered strength stood peacefully outside looking on and knew that light and dark were colsely related and that sorrow and peace were rhythm, part and spirit of the same great music.”
Hermann Hesse, Gertrude, 1910
