"On and ever onwards"

Hiroshima Mon Amour Alain Renais, 1959

Towards the end of the book (the time is 1914) Demian says to his friend Sinclair: "There will be war...But you will see, Sinclair, that this is just the beginning. Perhaps it will become a great war, a very great war. But even that is just the beginning. The new is beginning and for those who cling to the old the new will be horrible. What will you do?"

The right answer would be: "Assist the new without sacrificing the old." The best servitors of the new - Hesse is an example - may be those who know and love the old and carry it into the new.
- from Thomas Mann's 1947 introduction to Demian by Herman Hesse