Demian Hesse Quotes & Sayings

I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time. — 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

This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of
Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun
with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts
of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and
expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to? — Hermann Hesse

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature's determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same. For them mankind
which they loved as much as we did
was a fully formed entity that had to be preserved and protected. For us mankind was a distant future toward which we were all journeying, whose aspect no one knew, whose laws weren't written down anywhere. — Hermann Hesse

An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led. — Hermann Hesse

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one. — Hermann Hesse

We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. - from the preface to 'Demian — 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