# Quote — Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

> Although in a certain sense and for light-minded persons non-existent things can be more easily and irresponsibly represented in words than existing things, for the serious and conscientious historian it is just the reverse. Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.

- Author: [Hermann Hesse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse.md)
- Book: [The Glass Bead Game](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/the-glass-bead-game.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/the-glass-bead-game/although-in-a-certain

## More from this book

> In prehistoric times, music, like dance and every other artistic endeavor, was a branch of magic, one of the old and legitimate instruments of wonder-working. Beginning with rhythm (clapping of hands, tramping, beating of sticks and primitive drums) it was a powerful, tried-and-true device for putting large number of people “in tune” with one another, engendering the same mood, co-coordinating the pace of their breathing and heartbeats, encouraging them to invoke and conjure up the eternal powers, to dance, to compete, to make war, to worship. And music has retained this original, pure, primordially powerful character, its magic, far longer than the other arts.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/the-glass-bead-game/in-prehistoric-times.md)

> There are many types and kinds of vocation, but the core of the experience is always the same: the soul is awakened by it, transformed or exalted, so that instead of dreams and presentiments from within a summons comes from without.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/the-glass-bead-game/there-are-many.md)

> The Glass Bead Game, formerly the specialized entertainment of mathematicians in one era, philologists or musicians in another era, now more and more cast its spell upon all true intellectuals. ... After Joculator Basiliensis' grand accomplishment, the Game rapidly evolved into what it is today: the quintessence of intellectuality and art, the sublime cult, the unio mystica of all separate members of the Universitas Litterarum. In our lives it has partially taken over the role of art, partially that of speculative philosophy.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/the-glass-bead-game/the-glass-bead-game.md)