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Hermann Hesse

177 quotes

“The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time about India and Her Culture (2008) by Sushama Londhe
“In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That's the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sadness when there should be Joy, hatred when there should be love show compassion because we can be more because we both have scars and pain that no one will ever understand but us so be with me not against me and bring us where we were happy and free.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once my world was full of friends,”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was given the freedom to discover my own inclination and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they only have themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assume importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full, but also every sorrow, and many who find that their wishes cannot be fulfilled, immediately put an end to their lives.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That life is difficult, I have often bitterly realized. I now had further cause for serious reflection. Right up to the present I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge. My life has been miserable and difficult, and yet to others, and sometimes to myself, it has seemed rich and wonderful. Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The south winds roars at night, Curlews hasten in their flight, The air is damp and warm. Desire to sleep has vanished now, Spring has arrived in the night In the wake of a storm.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be still, my heart, away with pain! Though passion stirs again In blood that now flows slowly And leads to paths once known, These paths you tread in vain For youth has flown.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children and often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend — yes, you too once helped me that way — at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I can also not think, talk, live and feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must not give way to desires which you don't believe in. I know what you desire. You should, however, either be capable of renouncing these desires or feel wholly justified in having them. Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come. But at present you alternate between desire and renunciation and are afraid all the time. All that must be overcome.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must find your dream, then the way becomes easy. But there is no dream that lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular one.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love does not entreat; or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. It was a scandal that a breed of fearless and sinister people ran around freely, so they attached a nickname and a myth to these people to get even with them, to make up for the many times they had felt afraid.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value. You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Abraxas was the god who was both god and devil.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had grown a thin mustache, I was a full-grown man, and yet I was completely helpless and without a goal in life.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If nature has made you a bat, you shouldn't try and be an ostrich. You consider yourself odd at times, you accuse yourself of taking a road different from most people. You have to unlearn that! Gaze into the fire, the clouds and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak - surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it is permitted or would please your teachers or your father or some God. You will ruin yourself if you do that. That way you will become earth bound, a vegetable.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world. Abraxas does not take exception to any of your thoughts, any of your dreams. Never forget that. But he will leave you once you've become blameless and normal. Then he will leave you and look for a different vessel in which to brew his thoughts.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wenn wir einen Menschen hassen, so hassen wir in seinem Bild etwas, was in uns selber sitzt. Was nicht in uns selber ist, das regt uns nicht auf.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We aren't pigs as you seem to think, but human beings. We create gods and struggle with them, and they bless us.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You, too, have mysteries of your own. I know that you must have dreams that you don't tell me. I don't want to know them. But I can tell you: live those dreams, play with them, build altars to them. It is not yet the ideal but it points in the right direction. Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world someday remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day, otherwise we just aren't serious. Don't forget that!”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each man had only one genuine vocation — to find the way to himself”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world, as it is now, wants to die, wants to perish — and it will.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Siddhartha … had begun to suspect that his worthy father and his other teachers, the wise Brahmins, had already passed on to him the bulk and best of their wisdom, that they had already poured the sum total of their knowledge into his waiting vessel; and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H. Rosner, trans. (Bantam: 1971), p. 5
“They knew a tremendous number of things — But was it worthwhile knowing all these things if they did not know the one important thing, the only important thing?”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge — that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have never seen a man look and smile, sit and walk like that, he thought. I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his self. I also will conquer my self.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H. Rosner, trans. (Bantam: 1971), p. 35
“You are like me; you are different from other people. You are Kamala and no one else, and within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself, just as I can. Few people have that capacity and yet everyone could have it.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world had caught him; pleasure, covetousness, idleness, and finally also that vice he had always despised and scorned as the most foolish—acquisitiveness. Property, possessions and riches had also finally trapped him. They were no longer a game and a toy. They had become a chain and a burden.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H. Rosner, trans. (Bantam: 1971), pp. 76-79
“Like one who has eaten and drunk too much and vomits painfully, and then feels better, so did the restless man wish he could rid himself with one terrific heave of these pleasures, of these habits of this entirely senseless life.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H. Rosner, trans. (Bantam: 1971), p. 82
“A true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something. But he who had found, could give his approval to every path, every goal; nothing separated him from all of the other thousands who lived in eternity, who breathed the Divine.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although he had reached a high stage of self-discipline and bore his last wound well, he now felt as if these ordinary people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires, and trivialities no longer seemed absurd to him; they had become understandable, lovable, and even worthy of respect.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These people were worthy of love and admiration in their blind loyalty, in their blind strength and tenacity. With the exception of one small thing, one tiny little thing, they lacked nothing that the sage and thinker had, and that was the consciousness of the unity of all life.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling, and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to the song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om — perfection.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny. There shone in his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who is no longer confronted with conflict of desires, who has found salvation, who is in harmony with the stream of events, with the stream of life, full of sympathy and compassion, surrendering himself to the stream, belonging to the unity of all things.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source