“Joseph Knecht had often noticed that many schoolmates his own age, but even more the younger boys, liked him, sought his friendship, and moreover tended to let him dominate them. They asked him for advice, put themselves under his influence. Ever since, this experience had been repeated frequently. It had its pleasant and flattering side; it satisfied ambition and strengthened self-confidence. But it also had another, a dark and terrifying side. For there was something bad and unpalatable about the attitude one took toward these schoolmates so eager for advice, guidance, and an example, about the impulse to despise them for their lack of self-reliance and dignity, and about the occasional secret temptation to make them (at least in thought) into obedient slaves.”

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

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Hermann Hesse 168
German writer 1877–1962

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“Which had the fairer pretext for warfare, we may not know: each has high authority to support him; for, if the victor had the gods on his side, the vanquished had Cato.”
Quis iustius induit arma scire nefas: magno se iudice quisque tuetur; Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni.

Book I, line 128 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Tho. Hobbes's translation:
: The side that won the Gods approved most,
But Cato better lik'd the side that lost.
Jane Wilson Joyce's translation:
: The conquering cause pleased the gods, but the conquered pleased Cato.
Pharsalia

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