“That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.”

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Telling (2000), Ch. 5 (p. 133)

The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: To be capable of everything and do justice to everything, one certainly does not need less spiritual force and èlan and warmth, but more. What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward an isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.

Source: Annihilation

Source: The Lost Symbol

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 15 - 16

Journal entry (7 October 1965) as published in No Souvenirs (1977) later retitled Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989), p. 269.