# Quote — Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

> Pope Pius XV, who as a cardinal had been and excellent and ardent Glass Bead Game player, a pontiff followed the example of all his predecessors in bidding the Game farewell forever; but he went a step further and actually attempted to put the Game on trial.... A widely read biography of this rather important man had represented his attitude toward the Glass Bead Game as one of deep passion which in his pontifical office he could vent only in the form of hostility.

- 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/pope-pius-xv-who

## 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)