There was always a screen behind which one could hide– a superior who in turn had his superior– orders, instructions, duties, commands– and finally the many-headed monster, morale, necessity, hard reality, responsibility, or whatever it was called– there was always a screen behind which to evade the simple law of humanity. Erich Maria Remarque
About This Quote

This quote by Herman Hesse is about the human need for control and how we often try and hide that need from ourselves, by creating a larger world or system around us that we can manipulate. Being able to create something larger than yourself and then using it to hide from yourself is an interesting idea. The quote goes on to say, "No matter how great the human need may be, there is always a way to make it disappear."

Source: Arch Of Triumph: A Novel Of A Man Without A Country

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More Quotes By Erich Maria Remarque
  1. A crude age. Peace is stabilized with cannon and bombers, humanity with concentration camps and pogroms. We're living in a time when all standards are turned upside-down, Kern. Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of...
  2. Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!
  3. Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers...
  4. For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress -- to the future.
  5. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom.
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