Hermann Hesse (Writer)

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

— Hermann Hesse hate

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

— Hermann Hesse soul

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

— Hermann Hesse time

Solitude is independence.

— Hermann Hesse independence

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 purpose

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

— Hermann Hesse wisdom

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

— Hermann Hesse art

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

— Hermann Hesse men

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 life

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

— Hermann Hesse mind

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

— Hermann Hesse talent

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

— Hermann Hesse self

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

— Hermann Hesse thoughts

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

— Hermann Hesse love

The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

— Hermann Hesse death

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

— Hermann Hesse happiness

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

— Hermann Hesse courage

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

— Hermann Hesse writing

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 art

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

— Hermann Hesse reality

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

— Hermann Hesse faith

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

— Hermann Hesse wit

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 value

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

— Hermann Hesse men

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 Gods name is Abraxas.p. 166 Variant translation: The bird is struggling out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The name of the God is called Abraxas.As translated by W. J. Strachan

— Hermann Hesse god

When I take a long look at my life, as though from outside, it does not appear particularly happy. Yet I am even less justified in calling it unhappy, despite all its mistakes. After all, it is foolish to keep probing for happiness or unhappiness, for it seems to me it would be hard to exchange the unhappiest days of my life for all the happy ones. If what matters in a persons existence is to accept the inevitable consciously, to taste the good and bad to the full and to make for oneself a more individual, unaccidental and inward destiny alongside ones external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless. Even if, as it is decreed by the gods, fate has inexorably trod over my external existence as it does with everyone, my inner life has been of my own making . I deserve its sweetness and bitterness and accept full responsibility for it.p. 3

— Hermann Hesse life

A thousand such possibilities await him. His fate brings them on, leaving him no choice; for those outside of the bourgeoisie live in the atmosphere of these magic possibilities. A mere nothing suffices — and the lightning strikes.p. 56

— Hermann Hesse magic

Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.p. 22

— Hermann Hesse life

I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

— Hermann Hesse self

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.p. 4

— Hermann Hesse hope

When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. 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 doesnt let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.As translated by Ejvind Haas

— Hermann Hesse art

How foolish to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.

— Hermann Hesse war

I live in my dreams — thats what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. Thats the difference.p. 183

— Hermann Hesse dreams

MAGIC THEATER ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY I tried to open the door, but the heavy old latch would not stir. The display too was over. It had suddenly ceased, sadly convinced of its uselessness. I took a few steps back, landing deep into the mud, but no more letters came. The display was over. For a long time I stood waiting in the mud, but in vain. Then, when I had given up and gone back to the alley, a few colored letters were dropped here and there, reflected on the asphalt in front of me. I read: FOR MADMEN ONLY!p. 32

— Hermann Hesse time

One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.p. 218

— Hermann Hesse art

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 wont succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.p. 146

— Hermann Hesse world

Our gods 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 youve become blameless and normal. Then he will leave you and look for a different vessel in which to brew his thoughts.p. 180

— Hermann Hesse god

Out whole civilization was a cemetery where Jesus Christ and Socrates, Mozart and Haydn, Dante and Goethe were but indecipherable names on moldering stones; and the mourners who stood round affecting a pretense of sorrow would give much to believe in these inscriptions which once were holy, or at least to utter one heart-felt word of grief and despair about this world that is no more. And nothing was left them but the embarrassed grimaces of a company round a grave.

— Hermann Hesse art

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.p. 217

— Hermann Hesse life

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 love

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 lovep. 88

— Hermann Hesse love

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