Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence

Man designs for himself a garden with a hundred kinds of trees, a thousand kinds of flowers, a hundred kinds of fruit and vegetables. Suppose, then, that the gardener of this garden knew no other distinction between edible and inedible, nine-tenths of this garden would be useless to him. He would pull up the most enchanting flowers and hew down the noblest trees and even regard them with a loathing and envious eye. This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul. What does not stand classified as either man or wolf he does not see at all.

We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.

I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.

To recognize causes is to think, and through thought alone feelings become knowledge and are not lost, but become real and begin to mature.

...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.

A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.