# Quote — Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

> Many generations of cloister schoolboys had trooped past beneath this stranger tree, laughing, gossiping, playing, squabbling, shod or barefoot, according to the season of the year; each with his writing-tablet; boys with a flower between their lips, boys cracking nuts, boys with snowballs. Always there were new ones; every second year brought its fresh faces, though most - tousled and yellow-haired - were very like the boys that had passed. Some stayed and turned into novices, then monks, and their yellow hair was shorn. Ch. I

- Author: [Hermann Hesse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse.md)
- Book: [Narcissus and Goldmund](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/narcissus-and-goldmund.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse#Narcissus_and_Goldmund_(1930)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/narcissus-and-goldmund/many-generations-of-cloister

## More from this book

> Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/narcissus-and-goldmund/without-a-mother.md)

> When it came about that a new face appeared in the cloister, which had seen so many faces come and go, and that this new face was not among those that pass unnoticed, and when they are gone, are soon forgotten. It was a little boy, long since announced by his father, who brought him, on a day in spring, to put him to school in the cloister. Under the chestnut tree they tethered their horses, and the porter had come out through the gate to meet them. The boy looked up at the still bare branches of the tree. ‘I have never seen such a tree as that till now,’ he said, ‘a rare, beautiful tree, and I wish I knew what they call it.’ The father, an elderly man, with a peaked, care-lined face, did not heed the words of his little son. But the porter, pleased already with the boy, told him the name of the tree. The little boy thanked him graciously, gave him his hand, and said to him: ‘My name is Goldmimd, and I am to go to school here.’ The porter smiled and led the newcomers through the gates and on up the broad stone steps. Goldmund entered the cloister without dismay, feeling that here he had met two beings, the tree and the porter, with whom he could easily be friends. Ch. I

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/narcissus-and-goldmund/when-it-came.md)

> Books were written and annotated, systems evolved, the writings of the ancients collected, missals illuminated, the people’s belief fostered, the people’s credulity smiled upon. Here there was all, and room for everything, belief and learning, depths and simplicity, the wisdom of the Greeks and the Evangelists, black magic and white - all had their uses.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/narcissus-and-goldmund/books-were-written.md)