A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self {rudimentary as his may be}. And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.
( Hermann Hesse )
[ Steppenwolf ]
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