Life is always frightful. We cannot help it and we are responsible all the same. One's born and at once one is guilty.
Interpretation
Life is inherently challenging, and despite its difficulties, we are responsible for our actions and choices.
Hermann Hesse's quote reflects on the existential nature of life, acknowledging that it is filled with fears and responsibilities from the moment we are born. It emphasizes the idea that, although life can be daunting, we must embrace our responsibilities and the inherent guilt that comes from human existence, prompting us to confront the complexities of our choices.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal accountability, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of owning one's choices.
I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.
That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged β to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.
I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
You're quite right there," he said. "I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.
I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
But the present world is also designed for something which has not yet happened. It is like a violin waiting to be played: beautiful to look at, graceful to hold - and yet if you'd never heard one in the hands of a musician, you wouldn't believe the new dimensions of beauty yet to be revealed.
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
The main question ... is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law.
Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges.
Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.
In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance.
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