from Herman Hesse's 'The Glass Bead Game'

"Doesn't the history of thought, of culture and the arts, have some kind of connection with the rest of history?"

"Absolutely not," his friend exclaimed."That is exactly what I am denying. World history is a race with time, a scramble for profit, for power, for treasures. What counts is who has the strength, luck or vulgarity not to miss his opportunity. The achievements of thought, of culture, of art, are just the opposite. They are always an escape from the serfdom of time, man crawling out of the muck of his instincts and out of his sluggishness, and climbing to a higher plane, to timelessness, liberation from time, divinity. They are utterly unhistorical and antihistorical."