Hermann Hesse Quotes

Perhaps he was handsome, perhaps I liked him, perhaps I also found him repulsive, I could not be sure of that either. — Hermann Hesse

The world ... is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment ... — Hermann Hesse

Only when I found myself sitting in front of you did I realize that my wish was only half fulfilled and that my sole aim was to sit next to you. — Hermann Hesse

But each one is a gamble of Nature, a hopeful attempt at forming a human being. — Hermann Hesse

Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long. — Hermann Hesse

Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to follow the path that leads to himself. — Hermann Hesse

Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else. — Hermann Hesse

Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness. — Hermann Hesse

You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect. — Hermann Hesse

It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone. — Hermann Hesse

Oh, I know it today: nothing in the world is more repugnant to a man than following the path that leads him to himself! Nevertheless, — Hermann Hesse

But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. — Hermann Hesse

Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish. — Hermann Hesse

Love can be begged, bought, or received as a gift, one can find it in the street, but one cannot steal it. — Hermann Hesse

The dream of death is only the dark smoke
Under which the fires of life are burning. — Hermann Hesse

I realised that all this talk was of no value and at its best only led to clever phrases. — Hermann Hesse

The river taught us how to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting open soul ... — Hermann Hesse

I don't believe in our politics, our way of thinking, believing, amusing ourselves; I don't share a single one of the ideals of our age. — Hermann Hesse

For you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than force. Vesadeva to Siddartha — Hermann Hesse

We passed for jolly, unruly, even dangerous rioters, which was untrue of me, and we enjoyed a doubtful but heroic reputation. — Hermann Hesse

For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal. — Hermann Hesse

I meditated upon it and found myself to be a riddle — Hermann Hesse

Psychoanalysis has at bottom no other goal than to create a space within oneself in which God's voice can be heard — Hermann Hesse

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud. — Hermann Hesse

Look: We hate nothing that exists, not even death, suffering and dying, does not horrify our souls, as long as we learn more deeply to love. — Hermann Hesse

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. — Hermann Hesse

It was one of the ferryman's greatest virtues that, like few people, he knew how to listen. — Hermann Hesse

He could have exchanged his name and address with any of his neighbours, and nothing would have been different. — Hermann Hesse

People like best what is hard for them to obtain. — Hermann Hesse

passacaglia by the old master Buxtehude. — Hermann Hesse

Enough! Or too much. — Hermann Hesse

seriousness, young man, is an accident of time — Hermann Hesse

You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value. — Hermann Hesse

The freedom to ... regard the future as the hope and product of my own strength and not as something fashioned by some strange power from above. — Hermann Hesse

Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, — Hermann Hesse

Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself. — Hermann Hesse

When the suffering becomes acute enough, one goes forward. — Hermann Hesse

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, impresihable light, inviolable peace. — Hermann Hesse

You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live. — Hermann Hesse

Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them. — Hermann Hesse

While one is singing one does not think about whether of not the singing is useful. One simply sings. — Hermann Hesse

Art is contemplation of the world in a state of grace and imaginatively reflecting that subjective understanding. — Hermann Hesse

In the beginning was the myth. — Hermann Hesse

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened. — Hermann Hesse

It is not my place to judge another person's life. Only for myself, for myself alone, I must decide, I must chose, I must refuse. — Hermann Hesse

To listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgement, without opinions. — Hermann Hesse

My path had led me at that time into a new life, which had now grown old and is dead — Hermann Hesse

It's so good to know that inside us there's a self that knows everything! — Hermann Hesse

Let every reader do as his conscience bids him. — Hermann Hesse

There are many ways in which the god can make us lonely and lead us to ourselves. — Hermann Hesse

Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. — Hermann Hesse

How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures? — Hermann Hesse

Everyone takes, everyone gives, such is life. — Hermann Hesse

The river is everywhere. — Hermann Hesse

This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love them. — Hermann Hesse

Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism. — Hermann Hesse

Only the ideas that we really live have any value. — Hermann Hesse

Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they have only themselves to think of. — Hermann Hesse

How exhausting all this was. In fact, if only people knew how madly tiresome it is to be a criminal ... ! — Hermann Hesse

One cannot apologize for something fundamental, and a child feels and knows this as well and as deeply as any sage. — Hermann Hesse

But it's a poor fellow who can't take his pleasure without asking other people's permission. — Hermann Hesse

I can think. I can wait. I can fast. — Hermann Hesse

All the girls I had ever loved were mine. Each gave me what she alone had to give and to each I gave what she alone knew how to take. — Hermann Hesse

To nobody can you communicate in words and teachings, what happened to you in your hour of enlightenment. — Hermann Hesse

Everyone can perform magic; everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, to wait, and to fast." Kamala — Hermann Hesse

Friendship is identification and difference — Hermann Hesse

. . . nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! — Hermann Hesse

Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet. — Hermann Hesse

One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen. — Hermann Hesse

To him, art and craftmanship were usless unless they burned like the sun and had power of storms. — Hermann Hesse

A father can pass on his nose and eyes and even his intelligence to his child, but not his soul. In every human being the soul is new — Hermann Hesse

Here it is Saturday. You wouldn't know how good it feels after a hard week."
"Oh, I can imagine," said Knulp with a smile. — Hermann Hesse

If I know what love is, it is because of you. — Hermann Hesse

Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world. — Hermann Hesse

We marked men were not at all worried about the shape the future would take. — Hermann Hesse

Her chatter had set her free from a long week of loneliness, of doing what she was told and saying nothing. She was all cheered up. — Hermann Hesse

Painting is marvelous; it makes you happier and more patient. Afterwards you do not have black fingers as with writing, but blue and red ones. — Hermann Hesse

The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything. — Hermann Hesse

Love is stronger than violence. — Hermann Hesse

Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself. — Hermann Hesse

Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest. — Hermann Hesse

I lived again through all the loves of my life - but under hapier stars. — Hermann Hesse

Love is like death. It is fulfillment and an evening after which nothing more may follow. — Hermann Hesse

You could observe people's folly, you could laugh at them or feel sorry for them, but you had to let them go their own way. — Hermann Hesse

He loved that anxiety, that terrible and oppressive anxiety which he experienced during the game of dice, during the suspense of high stakes. — Hermann Hesse

As insanity in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizophrenia the beginning of all art, all fantasy. — Hermann Hesse

And they didn't like to pay with trust and love, but rather with money and goods. They betrayed each other and expected being betrayed themselves. — Hermann Hesse

The world was beautiful when one just looked at it without — Hermann Hesse

I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back. — Hermann Hesse

The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. — Hermann Hesse

You have to try the impossible to achieve the possible — Hermann Hesse

When we hate a man, we hate in him something which resides in us ourselves. What is not in us does not move us." Never — Hermann Hesse

Kamala did not try to find him. She was not surprised when she learned that Siddhartha had disappeared. — Hermann Hesse

But though the ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to the self. — Hermann Hesse

A person can neither think what he wants to nor can I make him think what I want to. — Hermann Hesse

Look at a person carefully long enough, and you'll know more about him than he himself does." The — Hermann Hesse

I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. — Hermann Hesse

Your soul is the whole world. — Hermann Hesse

It was fortunate that love did not need words; or else it would be full of misunderstanding and foolishness. — Hermann Hesse

Nothing is caused by demons. There are no demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait, and fast. — Hermann Hesse