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" When I call my articles "political", it is always in quotes, for there is nothing political about them but the atmosphere in which they came into being. In all other respects they are the opposite of political, because in each one of these essays I strive to guide the reader not into the world theater with its political problems but into his innermost being, before the judgment seat of his very personal conscience. In this I am at odds with the political thinkers of all trends, and I shall always, incorrigibly, recognize in man, in the individual man and his soul, the existence of realms to which political impulses and forms do not extend. "
― Hermann Hesse , If The War Goes On: Reflections On War And Politics
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" The truth is simply that money, power, and all the possessions for which men torment and ultimately shoot each other mean little to one who has come to himself, to a self-willed man. He values only one thing, the mysterious power in himself which bids him live and helps him to grow. This power can be neither preserved nor increased nor deepened by money and power, because money and power are the inventions of distrust. Those who distrust the life-giving force within them, or who have none, are driven to compensate through such substitutes as money. When a man has confidence in himself, when all he wants in the world is to live out his destiny in freedom and purity, he comes to regard all those vastly overestimated and far too costly possessions as mere accessories, pleasant perhaps to have and make use of, but never essential. "
― Hermann Hesse , If The War Goes On: Reflections On War And Politics
