Words matter. These are the best Hermann Hesse Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do.
The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment, every sin already carries grace in it.
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.
It was morning; through the high window I saw the pure, bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy, as if it had special plans, and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.
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.
You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.
It was still quiet in the house, and not a sound was heard from outside, either. Were it not for this silence, my reverie would probably have been disrupted by reminders of daily duties, of getting up and going to school.
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
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.
When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself.
Wisdom is 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.
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever will be born must destroy a world.
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.
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
Love of God is not always the same as love of good.
Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.
The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.
In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.
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.
I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.
Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature.
The truth is lived, not taught.
Solitude is independence.
In Germany I have been acknowledged again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the war; have not yet been republished there.
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.
As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.
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.
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.
Only the ideas that we really live have any value.
It is not Kafka’s fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature.
