Demian

remorse and contrition

This world was for the most part very well known to me; it meant mother and father, love and severity, good example and school

For that reason every man, so long as he lives at all and carries out the will of nature, is wonderful and worthy of every attention. In everyone has the spirit taken shape, in everyone creation suffers, in everyone is a redeemer crucified

Seldom in life has need so oppressed me, seldom have I felt a greater helplessness, a greater dependence.

The devil could run away with me if he liked, there was no way out.

The grace of God was with them all, but with me no longer. Cold and very tired, I went away.

When I pictured the devil to myself, I could quite well imagine him down below in the street, openly or in disguise, or at the annual fair or in the public house, but I could never imagine him with us at home.

I was a seeker and am still, but I seek no more in the stars or in books; I am beginning to listen to the promptings of those instincts which are coursing in my very blood.

I wanted only to try to live in obedience to the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

For men are shot down in heaps-men, of whom each one is a precious, unique experiment of nature. If we were nothing more than individuals, we could actually be put out of the world entirely with a musket-ball, and in that case there would be no more sense in relating stories. But each man is not only himself, he is also the unique, quite special, and in every case the important and remarkable point where the world’s phenomena converge, in a certain manner, never again to be repeated. For that reason the history of everyone is important, eternal, divine. For that reason every man, so long as he lives at all and carries out the will of nature, is wonderful and worthy of every attention. In everyone has the spirit taken shape, in everyone creation suffers, in everyone is a redeemer crucified.