Hermann Hesse Quotes

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Quotes About Hermann Hesse

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How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.
"When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not
scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and
worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter
by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book
of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated be-fore I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a
deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless
forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have in-deed awakened and have not been born before this very day. ~ Hermann Hesse
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You had an image of life inside you, a belief or an ideal, that you were ready to do good deeds, to suffer, and to sacrifice – and by degrees you noticed that the world had no need of your good deeds, or sacrifices, and such like; that life was not an heroic tale, with roles for heroes, and such like, but a comfortable bourgeois parlour, where one is perfectly satisfied with eating and drinking, coffee and knitted stockings, tarot readings and music on the radio. And he who wants otherwise and has the heroic and the beautiful inside him, the veneration of great poets or the adoration of saints inside him, he is a fool and a knight errant, a latter day Don Quixote? ~ Hermann Hesse
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I understood it all. I understood Pablo. I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me I heard his ghastly laughter. I knew that all the hundred thousand pieces of life's game were in my pocket. A glimpse of its meaning had stirred my reason and I was determined to begin the game afresh. I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often, the hell of my inner being. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Doesn't your learning reveal to you that the reason why I please you and mean so much to you is because I am a kind of looking-glass for you, because there is something in me that answers you and understands you? Really, we ought all to be such looking-glasses to each other and answer and correspond to each other. ~ Hermann Hesse
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And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzling over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. ~ Hermann Hesse
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But we'll never again be so young … Or don't you like dancing? ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
I paint because I have no tail to wag. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
It would be better for our country and the world in general, if at least the few people who were capable of thought stood for reason and the love of peace instead of heading wildly with blind obsession for new war. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
And those of us who trust ourselves the least,
Who doubt and question most, these, it may be,
Will make their mark upon eternity,
And youth will turn to them as to a feast.
The time may come when a man who confessed
His self-doubts will be ranked among the blessed
Who never suffered anguish or knew fear,
Whose times were times of glory and good cheer,
Who lived like children, simple happy lives.
For in us too is part of that Eternal Mind
Which through the aeons calls to brothers of its kind:
Both you and I will pass, but it survives. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
The cup was emptied and would never be filled again. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Let us recall the well-known statement of a university professor in the Republic of the Massagetes: 'Not the faculty but His Excellency the General can properly determine the sum of two and two.' ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
It was all the same to him where he would end up; what mattered most was the fact he had finally escaped … and shown … that his will was stronger than mere commands and edicts. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
From the sacred center of the world streams forth an irrepressible desire to overcome the silence between things. Art, the ever flowing fountain, reveals the secret of life through word and gesture, color and sound. The ~ Hermann Hesse
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I wanted ... people to listen to the pulse of nature, to partake of the wholeness of life and not forget, under the pressure of their petty destinies, that we are not gods and have not created ourselves but are the children of the earth, part of the cosmos. ~ Hermann Hesse
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He had also learned that the sick and unfortunate are far more receptive to traditional magic spells and exorcisms than to sensible advice; that people more readily accept affliction and outward penances than the task of changing themselves, or even examining themselves; that they believe more easily in magic than reason, in formulas than experience ... They would much rather pay in money and goods than in trust and love. They cheat one another and expect to be cheated themselves. You had to learn to see man as a weak, selfish, and cowardly creature; you also had to realize how many of these evil traits and impulses you shared yourself ... ~ Hermann Hesse
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I can still catch the fragrance of many things which stir me with feelings of melancholy and send delicious shivers of delight through me - dark and sunlit streets, houses and towers, clock chimes and people's faces, rooms full of comfort and warm hospitality, rooms full of secret and profound, ghostly fears. It is a world that savours of warm corners, rabbits, servant girls, household remedies and dried fruit. It was the meeting-place of two worlds; day and night came thither from two opposite poles. ~ Hermann Hesse
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He wanted to strive for nothing, except for what the voice commanded him to strive for, dwell on nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so. ~ Hermann Hesse
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There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself. ~ Hermann Hesse
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And who over the ruins of his life pursued its fleeting, fluttering significance, while he suffered its seeming meaninglessness and lived its seeming madness, and who hoped in secret at the last turn of the labyrinth of Chaos for revelation and God's presence ... ~ Hermann Hesse
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But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die. ~ Hermann Hesse
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It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Many people say 'they love nature,' by which they mean they don't dislike the charms nature displays before them. They go on outings, delight in the beauty of the earth as they trample meadows and tear off flowers and sprigs, only to discard them or let them wilt at home. That is how they love nature. ~ Hermann Hesse
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In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish ... It is perfectly fine with me that what for one man is precious wisdom for another sounds like foolery. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Siddhartha listened. He was now completely and utterly immersed in his listening, utterly empty, utterly receptive; he felt he had now succeeded in learning how to listen. He had heard all these things often now, these many voices in the river; today it sounded new. Already he could no longer distinguish the many voices, could not distinguish the gay from the weeping, the childish from the virile; they all belonged together, the yearning laments and the wise man's laughter, the cry of anger and the moans of the dying; they were all one, all of them interlinked and interwoven, bound together in a thousand ways. And all of this together - all the voices, all the goals, all the longing, all the suffering, all the pleasure, everything good and everything bad - all of it together was the world. All of it together was the river of occurrences, the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this thousand-voiced song, when he listened neither for the sorrow nor for the laughter, when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them, heard the whole, the oneness - then the great song of the thousand voices consisted only of a single word: Om, perfection. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The art of love-giving and taking become one. ~ Hermann Hesse
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During this long ... journey, I realised the impossibility of running away and escaping. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Every day new souls kept springing up [within me] beside the host of old ones, making clamorous demands and creating confusion; and now I saw as clearly as in a picture what an illusion my former personality had been. The few capacities and pursuits in which I happened to be strong had occupied all my attention, and I had painted a picture of myself as a person who was in fact nothing more than a most refined and educated specialist in poetry, music and philosophy; and as such I had lived, leaving all the rest of me to be a chaos of potentialities, instincts and impulses which I found an encumbrance and gave the label of Steppenwolf. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing
I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself. I was seeking Atman, I was seeking Brahman, I was determined to dismember myself and tear away its layers of husk in order to find in its unknown innermost recess the kernel at the heart of those layers, the Atman, life, the divine principle, the ultimate. But in so doing, I was losing myself. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it. He was aware of a great happiness mounting within him. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect or confined at a point somewhere along a gradual pathway toward perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go ~ Hermann Hesse
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You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
So, you see, you will have to learn to listen to more of the radio music of life. It'll do you good. You are uncommonly poor in gifts, a poor blockhead, but by degrees you will come to grasp what is required of you. You have got to learn to laugh. That will be required of you. You must apprehend the humor of life, its gallows-humor. But of course you are ready for everything in the world except what will be required of you. You are ready to stab girls to death. You are ready to be executed with all solemnity. You would be ready, no doubt, to mortify and scourge yourself for centuries together. Wouldn't you? It is time to come to your senses...You are to live and to learn to laugh. You are to learn to listen to the cursed radio music of life and to reverence the spirit behind it and to laugh at its distortions. So there you are. More will not be asked of you ~ Hermann Hesse
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He carried with him, obscured by only the lightest of veils, the awareness that a door was open and that one quick step could carry him to freedom whenever he chose. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Haller's sickness of the soul, as I now know, is not the eccentricity of a single individual, but the sickness of the times themselves, the neurosis of that generation to which Haller belongs, a sickness, it seems, that by no means attacks the weak and worthless only but, rather, precisely those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts. ~ Hermann Hesse
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All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame. ~ Hermann Hesse
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And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come and the motherly earth will gather me back home. It won't be the end of things, only a way of being born again, a bathing and a slumbering where the old and the withered sink down, where the young and new begin to breathe. Then, with other thoughts, I will walk along streets like these, and listen to streams, and overhear what the sky says in the evening, over and over and over. ~ Hermann Hesse
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What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Merchant: 'So you have lived on the possessions of others?'
Saddhartha: 'Apparently. The merchant also lives on the possession of others.'
Merchant: 'Well spoken ... ~ Hermann Hesse
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I imagine that every historian is similarly affected when he begins to record the events of some period and wishes to portray them sincerely. Where is the center of events, the common standpoint around which they revolve and which gives them cohesion? In order that something like cohesion, something like causality, that some kind of meaning might ensue and that it can in some way be narrated, the historian must invent units, a hero, a nation, an idea, and he must allow to happen to this invented unit what has in reality happened to the nameless. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The Steppenwolf, however, first threw up his sharp, closely cropped head and sniffed around nervously before he either made any answer or announced his name. "Oh, it smells good here," he said, and at that he smiled and my aunt smiled too. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Earlier I had thought a lot about why it was so extremely unusual for a person to be able to live for an ideal. Now I saw that many people, all in fact, are capable of dying for an ideal. Only, it mustn't be a personal, freely chosen ideal, but one held in common and taken over from other people. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Was that really love? I saw all these passionate people reel about and drift haphazardly as if driven by a storm, the man filled with desire today, satiated on the morrow, loving fiercely and discarding brutally, sure of no affection and happy in no love ... ~ Hermann Hesse
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There was only greed for living and dread, and out of dread, out of stupid childish dread of the cold, of loneliness, of death, two people fled to one another, kissed, embraced, rubbed cheek to cheek, put leg to leg, cast new human beings into the world. That was how it was. ~ Hermann Hesse
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The two Samanas recognized him simply by the perfection of his peace, by the stillness of his being in which there was no seeking, no desire, no imitation, no attempts at being seen
only light and peace. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it. These, Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind. ~ Hermann Hesse
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What a wonderful sleep it had been! Never had sleep so refreshed him, so renewed him, so rejuvenated him! Perhaps he had really died, perhaps he had been drowned and was reborn in another form. No, he recognized himself, he recognized his hands and feet, the place where he lay and the Self in his breast, Siddhartha, self-willed, individualistic. But this Siddhartha was somewhat changed, renewed. He had slept wonderfully. He was remarkably awake, happy and curious. ~ Hermann Hesse
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When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts ... Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Solitude is independence. ~ Hermann Hesse
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When someone reads a text whose meaning he wants to comprehend, he does not despise the signs and letters, calling them deceptive, contingent, and worthless husks, but rather he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, the I who wished to read the book of the world and the book of my own essential being, I have, for the sake of a previously imagined meaning, held these signs and letters in contempt, calling the world of appearances deception, calling my eye and my tongue themselves contingent, and worthless appearances. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened, and today is the first day of my new life." --Siddhartha ~ Hermann Hesse
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Narziss was dark and thin of face, and Goldmund open and radiant as a flower. Narziss was a thinker and anatomiser, Goldmund a dreamer and a child. Yet things common to both could bridge these differences. Both were knightly and delicate; both set apart by visible signs from their fellows, since both had received the particular admonishment of fate. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I am much inclined to live from my rucksack, and let my trousers fray as they like. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Within you is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself. - Hermann Hesse ~ Steve Martin
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Out of this moment when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more himself than before, firmer in his resolve. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Think of it ... that in your heart there is an answer to all the things and sights of the world, that everything concerns you, that you ought to know as much about everything as it is possible for man to know. ~ Hermann Hesse
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To be a bear and love a she-bear, that would not be such a bad life, and would, at least, be a far better one than to keep his reason and his thoughts, with all the rest that made him human, and yet live on alone, unloved, in sadness. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Like animals we call to each other, was the thought that came to him as he remembered the hour of love in the afternoon. ~ Hermann Hesse
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It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defences and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart. It did not last very long, a quarter of an hour perhaps; but it returned to me in a dream at night, and since, through all the barren days, I caught a glimpse of it now and then. Sometimes for a minute or two I saw it clearly, threading my life like a divine and golden track. But nearly always it was blurred in dirt and dust. Then again it gleamed out in golden sparks as though never to be lost again and yet was soon quite lost once more. ~ Hermann Hesse
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If a person were to concentrate all his will power on a certain end, then he would achieve it. That's all. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Narcissus looked at him gravely: I take you seriously when you are Goldmund. But you're not always Goldmund. I wish nothing more than to see you become Goldmund through and through. You are not a scholar, you are not a monk - scholars and monks can have a coarser grain. You think you're not learned or logical or pious enough for me. On the contrary, you are not enough yourself. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Only the weak are put on paths without peril. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I want to tell you something today, something that I have known for a long while, and you know it too; but perhaps you have never said it to yourself. I am going to tell you now what it is that I know about you and me and our fate. You, Harry, have been an artist and a thinker, a man full of joy and faith, always on the track of what is great and eternal, never content with the trivial and petty. But the more life has awakened you and brought you back to yourself, the greater has you need been and the deeper the sufferings and dread and despair that have overtaken you, till you were up to your neck in them. And all that you once knew and loved and revered as beautiful and sacred, all the belief you once had in mankind and our high destiny, has been of no avail and has lost its worth and gone to pieces. Your faith found no more air to breathe. And suffocation is a hard death. Is that true, Harry? Is that your fate? ~ Hermann Hesse
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Beginning to doubt the gods, there is only Atman ... and where is Atman found but in the self? But where is this self? ~ Hermann Hesse
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The mistaken and unhappy notion that a man is an enduring unity is known to you. It is also known to you that a man consists of a multitude of souls, of numerous selves. The separation of the unity of the personality into these numerous pieces passes for madness. Science has invented the name schizomania for it. Science is in this so far right as no multiplicity maybe dealt with unless there be a series, a certain order and grouping. It is wrong insofar as it holds that one only and binding lifelong order is possible for the multiplicity of subordinate selves. This error of science has many unpleasant consequences, and the single advantage of simplifying the work of the state-appointed pastors and masters and saving them the labors of original thought. In consequence of this error many persons pass for normal, and indeed for highly valuable members of society, who are incurably mad; and many, on the other hand, are looked upon as mad who are geniuses...This is the art of life. You may yourself as an artist develop the game of your life and lend it animation. You may complicate and enrich it as you please. It lies in your hands. Just as madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizomania the beginning of all art and all fantasy. ~ Hermann Hesse
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And so every one of us has to find out for himself what is allowed and what is forbidden
forbidden for him. It is entirely possible to never do anything forbidden at all and still be an absolute scroundel. And vice versa. ~ Hermann Hesse
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It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. ~ Hermann Hesse
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How exhausting all this was. In fact, if only people knew how madly tiresome it is to be a criminal ... ! ~ Hermann Hesse
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So you can't dance? Not at all? Not even one step? How can you say that you've taken any trouble to live when you won't even dance? ~ Hermann Hesse
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Young woman, fresh face, I don't want to know your name. I don't want to cherish and fatten my love for you. You aren't the end of my love, but its awakening, its beginning. ~ Hermann Hesse
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Mathematics, as far as he was concerned, was a Sphinx charged with deceitful puzzles whose cold malicious gaze transfixed her victims, and he gave the monster a wide berth. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. ~ Hermann Hesse
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All the books of the world full of thoughts and poems are nothing in comparison to a minute of sobbing, when feeling surges in waves, the soul feels itself profoundly and finds itself. Tears are the melting ice of snow. All angels are close to the crying person. ~ Hermann Hesse
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In spite of their friendship, they were so far apart, the bowstring was so taut between them: a seeing man and a blind man, they walked side by side ; the blind man's unawareness of his own blindness was a consolation only to himself. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me. ~ Hermann Hesse
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What is the world doing? Have new gods been discovered, new laws, new freedoms? Who cares! But up here a primrose is blossoming and bearing silver fuzz on its leaves, and the light sweet wind is singing below me in the poplars, and between my eyes and heaven a dark golden bee is hovering and humming - I care about that. It is humming the song of happiness, humming the song of eternity. Its song is my history of the world. ~ Hermann Hesse
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I understand you well. Now we have no need to dispute: you are awake, and so you have seen the difference between us, the difference between men akin to their father and those who take their destiny from a woman; the difference between spirit and intellect. ~ Hermann Hesse
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My resolve to die was not the whim of an hour. It was the ripe, sound fruit that had slowly grown to full size, lightly rocked by the winds of fate whose next breath would bring it to the ground. ~ Hermann Hesse
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How deaf and stupid I have been, he thought, walking on quickly. When anyone reads anything which he wishes to study, he does not despise the letters and punctuation marks, and call them illusion, chance and worthless shells, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wished to read the book of the world and of my own nature, did presume to despise the letters and signs. I called the world of appearances, illusion. I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened. ~ Hermann Hesse
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My path had led me at that time into a new life, which had now grown old and is dead ~ Hermann Hesse
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And so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teaching what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. That is why I am going on my way - not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone - or die ~ Hermann Hesse
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Your tranquil yes to the changing over into the formless void of the unlimited. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
I might be a beast astray, with no sense of its environment, yet there was some meaning in my foolish life, something in me gave an answer and was the receiver of those distant calls from worlds far above. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
I have seen many innocent people suffer and
die, and many a wicked man swim in prosperity. Have you
completely forgotten and abandoned us, are you completely
disgusted with your creation, do you want us all to perish? ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
So strange is the human being that in the midst of my new life and fulfilled wishes, I was sometimes aware of a slight, fleeting, subconscious desire for solitude, for even boring and empty days. It seemed to me that the time I had spent at home and the dreary uneventful life from which I was so glad to escape, was something desirable. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
Sinclair, your love is attracted to me. Once it begins to attract me, i will come. I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
I had often marked the contrast between their almost ludicrous gaiety and my lonely existence, sometimes with scorn, sometimes with a feeling of deprivation. But never until today had I felt with as much calm and secret strength how little it mattered to me, how remote and dead this world was for me. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
Are ideals attainable? Do we live to abolish death? No-we live to fear it and then again to love it, and just for death's sake it is that our spark of life glows for an hour now and then so brightly. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us share this delusion. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
Don't you ever dream … about another … more beautiful life where nobody is envious of others, … where people treat other people only with cheerfulness and consideration? Have you never thought that the world might be a totality, and that it might be beneficial and salutary to honour this unity of all things? ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility. ~ Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse quotes by Hermann Hesse
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