QUOTE : The life of society moves in a circle. Only those burdened with a common affliction understand each other. Thanks to their affliction they constitute a circle and provide each other mutual support. They glide along the inner borders of their circle, make way for or jostle one another gently in the crowd. Each encourages the other in the hope that it will react upon himself, or –and then it is done passionately –in the immediate enjoyment of this reaction. Each has only that experience which his affliction grants him; nevertheless one hears such comrades exchanging immensely varying experiences. ‘This is how you are,’ one says to the other; ‘instead of complaining, thank God that this is how you are, for if this were not how you are, you would have this or that misfortune, this or that shame.’ How does this man know that? After all, he belongs –his statement betrays it –to the same circle as does the one to whom he spoke; he stands in the same need of comfort.