Steppenwolf

Human beings’ thinking capacity is not very highly developed, and even the most intellectual and educated of them constantly view the world and themselves – for the most part themselves! – through the distorting lenses of very naive and simplistic formulae.

My solitude was cold, there was no denying that, but it was also serene, wonderfully serene and vast like the cold serene space in which the stars revolve.

If it had been possible for this heavenly little melody secretly to put down roots in my soul and one day to blossom forth in me again in all its lovely colours, could I be totally lost? Even if I was a stray animal, unable to understand its environment, my foolish life did have some meaning. There was something in me that responded to things, was receptive to calls from distant worlds above. My brain was a storehouse of a thousand images.

He had thought more than other people and when it came to intellectual matters he had that almost cool objectivity, that secure knowledge based on careful reflection, which only truly intelligent people possess, being quite without ambition and never seeking to shine, to talk others round to their point of view, or always to be proved right.