“For 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.”

Motto of the work written by Hesse, and attributed to an "Albertus Secundus"
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: For 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.

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Hermann Hesse 168
German writer 1877–1962

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“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.”

Motto of the work written by Hesse, and attributed to an "Albertus Secundus"
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: For 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.

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“Natural order was not invented by the human mind or set up by certain perceptive powers… The existence of order presupposes the existence of organizing intelligence. Such intelligence can be none other than God's.”

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Dieu existe? Oui http://books.google.com.mx/books/about/Dieu_existe_Oui.html?id=TBUCHQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y (1979). Paris. Stock. Christian Chabanis, p. 94.
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“Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.”

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This statement is not to be found in the works of Herodotus. It appears in the acknowledgements to Mark Twain's A Horse's Tale (1907) preceded by the words "Herodotus says", but Twain was simply summarizing what he took to be Herodotus' attitude to historiography.
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