I often ardently perceived a longing for relief, the desire for a proper confession, but I also felt in advance that I would be unable to tell and explain things correctly to either my father or mother. I knew that they would receive my words amicably, they would carefully spare my feelings, in fact, pity me, but they wouldn’t fully understand me, and the whole thing would be looked on as a sort of minor infraction, whereas it was actually my fate. Demian

A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks. The Name of The Rose

Know yourself and you will win all battles. The Art Of War

What are the choices that we must make if we are now to succeed, and not to fail? [...] Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial to tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection, we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives. One of those choices has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions. [...] The other crucial choice illuminated by the past involves the courage to make painful decisions about values. Which of the values that formerly served a society well can continue to be maintained under new changed circumstances? Which of these treasured values must instead be jettisoned and replaced with different approaches? Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed