“I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.”

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

“StagesAs every flower fades and as all youthDeparts, so life at every stage,So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,Blooms in its day and may not last forever.Since life may summon us at every ageBe ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,Be ready bravely and without remorseTo find new light that old ties cannot give.In all beginnings dwells a magic forceFor guarding us and helping us to live.Serenely let us move to distant placesAnd let no sentiments of home detain us.The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain usBut lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.If we accept a home of our own making,Familiar habit makes for indolence.We must prepare for parting and leave-takingOr else remain the slaves of permanence.Even the hour of our death may sendUs speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,And life may summon us to newer races.So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.”

“‎We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. - from the preface to 'Demian”

“Each of us is merely one human being, merely an experiment, a way station. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery.”

“You should never be afraid of people... such fear can destroy us completely. You've simply got to get rid of it, if you want to turn into someone decent. You understand that, don't you?”

“Every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which most often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create.”