Hermann Hesse Love Quotes & Sayings

I experienced by observing my own body and my own soul that I sorely needed sin, sorely needed concupiscence, needed greed, vanity, and the most shameful despair to learn to stop resisting, to learn to love the world and stop comparing it to some world I only wished for and imagined, some sort of perfection I myself had dreamed up, but instead to let it be as it was and to love it and be happy to belong to it. — Hermann Hesse

Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure. — Hermann Hesse

He envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of being constantly in love. These people were all of the time in love with themselves, with women, with their children, with honours or money, with plans or hopes — Hermann Hesse

And here now is a bit of doctrine that will make you laugh: Love, O Govinda, appears to me more important than all other matters. To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it
this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world, not to scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence. — Hermann Hesse

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

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

It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect. — Hermann Hesse

Natures of your kind, with strong, delicate senses, the soul-oriented, the dreamers, poets, lovers are always superior to us creatures of the mind. You take your being from your mothers. You live fully; you were endowed with the strength of love, the ability to feel. Whereas we creatures of reason, we don't live fully; we live in an arid land, even though we often seem to guide and rule you. Yours is the plentitude of life, the sap of the fruit, the garden of passion, the beautiful landscape of art. Your home is the earth; ours is the world of ideas. You are in danger of drowning in the world of the senses; ours is the danger of suffocating in an airless void. You are an artist; I am a thinker. You sleep at your mother's breast; I wake in the desert. For me the sun shines; for you the moon and the stars. — Hermann Hesse

Ask her who means freedom, whose name is love. Do not inquire of your intellect, do not search backwards through world history. Your soul will not blame you for having cared too little about politics, for having exerted yourself too little, hated your enemies too little, or too little fortified your frontiers. But she will perhaps blame you for so often having feared and fled from her demands, for never having had time to give her, your youngest and fairest child, no time to play with her, no time to listen to her song, for often having sold her for money, betrayed her for advancement ... You will be neurotic and a foe to life
so says your soul
if you neglect me, and you will be destroyed if you do not turn to me with a wholly new love and concern. — Hermann Hesse

For you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than force. Vesadeva to Siddartha — Hermann Hesse

As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. — Hermann Hesse

For one scant day he had loved himself, felt himself to be unified and whole, not split into hostile parts; he had loved himself and the world and God in himself, and everywhere he went he had met nothing but love, approval, and joy. — Hermann Hesse

Look: We hate nothing that exists, not even death, suffering and dying, does not horrify our souls, as long as we learn more deeply to love. — Hermann Hesse

Light the Christmas candles for your children! Let them sing carols! But don't delude yourselves, don't content yourselves year after year with the shabby, pathetic, sentimental feeling you have when you celebrate your holidays! Demand more of yourselves! Love and joy and the mysterious thing we call "happiness" are not over here or over there, they are only "within yourselves. — Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha began to understand that it was not happiness and peace that had come to him with his son but, rather, sorrow and worry. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of love to the happiness and peace he had known without the boy. — Hermann Hesse

Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else. — Hermann Hesse

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

Men of dreams, the lovers and the poets, are better in most things than the men of my sort; the men of intellect. You take your being from your mothers. You live to the full: it is given you to love with your whole strength, to know and taste the whole of life. We thinkers, though often we seem to rule you, cannot live with half your joy and full reality. Ours is a thin and arid life, but the fullness of being is yours; yours the sap of the fruit, the garden of lovers, the joyous pleasaunces of beauty. Your home is the earth, ours the idea of it. Your danger is to be drowned in the world of sense, ours to gasp for breath in airless space. You are a poet, I a thinker. You sleep on your mother's breast, I watch in the wilderness. On me there shines the sun; on you the moon with all the stars. Your dreams are all of girls, mine of boys - — Hermann Hesse

It is you I have been able to love, you alone in all the world. You can have no idea of what that means. It means a spring in the desert, a blossoming tree in the wilderness. — Hermann Hesse

She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brook all came toward him in new and resplendent colors, belonged to him, and spoke to him in his own language. And instead of merely winning a woman he embraced the entire world and every star in heaven glowed within him and sparkled with joy in his soul. He had loved and had found himself. — Hermann Hesse

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. — Hermann Hesse

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

How Heavy the Days ...
How heavy the days are.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die. — Hermann Hesse

I saw 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; then there were the women who were drawn to him, suffering insults and beatings, finally rejected and yet still clinging to him, degraded by jealousy and despised love, but still remaining faithful. — Hermann Hesse

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

This wonderful passage through the woods had to be painted with love — Hermann Hesse

I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, 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 — Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha had started to cultivate the seed of discontent within himself. He had started to feel like his father's love, his mother's love, and the love of his friend Govinda wouldn't make him happy forever, woudn't bring him peace, satisfy him, and be sufficient for all time. He had started to suspect that his illustrious father, his other teachers, and the wise Brahmins had shared the majority and the best of their wisdom with him, that they had already poured their all into his ready vessel without filling the vessel: the mind wasn't satisfied, the soul wasn't quiet, the heart wasn't stilled. — Hermann Hesse

All the girls I had ever loved were mine. Each gave me what she alone had to give and to each I gave what she alone knew how to take. — Hermann Hesse

It never occurred to him to see himself as the contradiction, the exact opposite of his friend. He thought that only love, only sincere devotion was needed to fuse two into one, to wipe out differences and bridge contrasts. But how harsh and positive this Narcissus was, how merciless and precise! Innocent abandonment, grateful wandering together in the land of friendship seemed unknown and undesirable to him. He did not seem to understand, to tolerate dreamy strolls on paths that led in no particular direction. — Hermann Hesse

Lovers should not separate from each other after making love without admiring each other, without being conquered as well as conquering, so that no feeling of satiation or desolation arises nor the horrid feeling of misusing or having been misused. — Hermann Hesse

I don't know whether I love Gina. I doubt it very much. I would not make any sacrifices for her. I do not know whether I can love at all. I can desire and can seek myself in others; I can listen for an echo, demand a mirror, seek pleasure, and all that can look like love. — Hermann Hesse

No use lamenting over it! I was now living in a blaze of unsatisfied desire, of suspenseful expectancy, that often made me wild and crazy. I often saw the image of my dream beloved before me with more than lifelike clarity, much more clearly than my own hand; I spoke to it, wept before it, cursed it. I called it mother and knelt before it in tears; I called it beloved and sensed its ripe, all-fulfilling kiss; I called it devil and whore, vampire and murderess. It lured me into the tenderest dreams of love and into acts of dissolute shamelessness; nothing was too good and precious for it, nothing too bad and vile. — Hermann Hesse

Love must not entreat,' she added, '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

He had loved and he had found himself. Most people love to lose themselves. — Hermann Hesse

He let himself be led into the night, into the forest, into the blind secret wordless, thoughtless country. — Hermann Hesse

You were too lazy to learn to dance until it was almost too late, and in the same way you were too lazy to learn to love. As for ideal and tragic love, that I don't doubt you can do marvellously- and all honour to you. Now you will learn to love a little in an ordinary human way. — Hermann Hesse

You don't force him, beat him, and give him orders because you know that 'soft' is stronger than 'hard,' that water is stronger than the rocks, that love is stronger than compulsion. — Hermann Hesse

a very beautiful river, I love it more than anything.
Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its eyes, and
always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river. — Hermann Hesse

Those who love nothing and hate nothing in the world, have no fetters. — Hermann Hesse

Can't you see that you had to be a reckless drifter to bring ... people a bit of child's folly and child's laughter wherever you went? To make all sorts of people love you a little and tease you a little and be a little grateful to you? — Hermann Hesse

As for others and the world around him he never ceased in his heroic and earnest endeavour to love them, to be just to them, to do them no harm, for the love of his neighbor was as deeply in him as the hatred of himself, and so his whole life was an example that love of one's neighbor is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair. — Hermann Hesse

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

Then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy. — Hermann Hesse

But how are you going to die one day, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother one cannot love. Without a mother one cannot die. — Hermann Hesse

He saw people living for their sake, saw them achieving endless things for their sake, traveling, waging wars, suffering endlessly, enduring endlessly, and he could love them for that; — Hermann Hesse

I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-up children, I managed it badly.
Everyone goes through this crisis. For the average person this is the point when the demands of his own life come into the sharpest conflict with his environment, when the way forward has to be sought with the bitterest means at his command. Many people experience the dying and rebirth - which is our fate - only this once during their entire life. Their childhood becomes hollow and gradually collapses, everything they love abandons them and they suddenly feel surrounded by the loneliness and mortal cold of the universe. Very many are caught forever in this impasse, and for the rest of their lives cling painfully to an irrevocable past, the dream of the lost paradise - which is the worst and most ruthless of dreams. — 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

This is what makes them so dear and worthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can love them. — Hermann Hesse

Love must neither beg nor demand. Love must be strong enough to find certainty within itself. It then cease to be moved and becomes the mover. — Hermann Hesse

If that was love, with cruelty here and humiliation there, then it was better to live without love. — Hermann Hesse

He raised himself above her pallid face and kissed her on both closed eyes and thought: she thinks she is taking and does not know that she is giving; in her loneliness she has fled to me and does not suspect my loneliness. — Hermann Hesse

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

How I used to love the dark, sad evenings of late autumn and winter, how eagerly I imbibed their moods of loneliness and melancholy when wrapped in my cloak I strode for half the night through rain and storm, through the leafless winter landscape, lonely enough then too, but full of deep joy, and full of poetry which later I wrote down by candlelight sitting on the edge of my bed! — Hermann Hesse

I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it. — Hermann Hesse

And occasionally I became very sad over that happiness, because I was well aware it couldn't last. I wasn't meant to exist in the lap of plenty and ease; I needed torment and persecution. I felt that some day I would awaken from those beautiful images of love and once be alone, in the cold world of the others, where there was only solitude or struggle for me, not peace or participation. — Hermann Hesse

Love of God," he said slowly, searching for words, "is not always
the same as love of good, I wish it were that simple. We know what
is good, it is written in the Commandments. But God is not
contained only in the Commandments, you know; they are only an
infinitesimal part of Him. A man may abide by the Commandments
and be far from God. — Hermann Hesse

No matter how close two human beings may be, there is always a gulf between them which only love can bridge, and that only from hour to hour. — Hermann Hesse

Before all else I learned that these playthings were not mere idle trifles invented by manufacturers and dealers for the purposes of gain. They were, on the contrary, a little or, rather, a big world, authoritative and beautiful, many sided, containing a multiplicity of things all of which had the one and only aim of serving love, refining the senses, giving life to the dead world around us, endowing it in a magical way with new instruments of love, from powder and scent to the dancing show, from ring to cigarette case, from waist-buckle to handbag. This bag was no bag, this purse no purse, flowers no flowers, the fan no fan. All were the plastic material of love, of magic and delight. Each was a messenger, a smuggler, a weapon, a battle cry. — Hermann Hesse

But stronger than his knowledge was his love for the boy, his devotion, his fear of losing him. Had he ever lost his heart to anybody so completely, so painfully, so hopelessly and yet so happily? — Hermann Hesse

If I know what love is, it is because of you. — Hermann Hesse

What we can and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egoism), our sense of injury, our lack of love and forbearance. I regard every other attempt to change the world, even if it springs from the best intentions, as futile. — Hermann Hesse

There is good and reason in us ... with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than ... fate, if only for a few hours. ... we can draw closer to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. — Hermann Hesse

Beauty does not bring happiness to the one who possesses it, but to the one who loves and admires it. — Hermann Hesse

After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time, Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine. — Hermann Hesse

How I hated myself, thwarted, poisoned and tortured myself, made myself old and ugly. Never again, as I once fondly imagined, will I consider that Siddartha is clever. But one thing I have done well, which pleases me, which I must praise- I have now put an end to that self-detestation, to that foolish empty life. I commend you, Siddartha, that after so many years of folly, you have again a good idea, that you have accomplished something, that you have again heard the bird in your breast sing and followed it. — Hermann Hesse

I sped through heaven and saw god at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart. — Hermann Hesse

To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect. — Hermann Hesse

It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty, loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests, including those of one's country. — Hermann Hesse

Love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen. — Hermann Hesse

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

In the art of love," she said thoughtfully, "you are the best I've ever seen. You are stronger than others, more agile, more willing. Well have you learned my art, Siddhartha. Some day, when I am older, I wish to bear your child. And yet all this time, beloved, you have remained a Samana. Even now you do not love me; you love no one. Is it not so?" "It may be so," Siddhartha said wearily. "I am like you. You, too, do not love - how else could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret. — Hermann Hesse

Suddenly he thought he saw a trait of soul-less habit in her dear coarse face, something mechanical and unmysterious in her friendly smile, something unworthy of him. His gesture froze in mid-air; the smile froze on his face. Was he still in love with her, did he really still desire her? No, he had been there too often. All too often he had seen this selfsame smile and smiled back without a prompting from his heart. What had still been all right yesterday was suddenly no longer possible today. — Hermann Hesse

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do. — Hermann Hesse

When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults. — Hermann Hesse

And many years later, as an adult student of history, Knecht was to perceive more distinctly that history cannot come into being without the substance and the dynamism of this sinful world of egoism and instinctuality, and that even such sublime creations as the Order were born in this cloudy torrent and sooner or later will be swallowed up by it again ... Nor was this ever merely an intellectual problem for him. Rather, it engaged his innermost self more than any other problem, and he felt it as partly his responsibility. His was one of those natures which can sicken, languish, and die when they see an ideal they have believed in, or the country and community they love, afflicted with ills. — Hermann Hesse

Love can be begged, bought, or received as a gift, one can find it in the street, but one cannot steal it. — Hermann Hesse

Liberation from ego is what we shramanas are seeking, O Exalted One. If I were your disciple, O Venerable One, I'm afraid it might befall me that my ego would be pacified and liberated only seemingly, only illusorily, that in reality it would survive and grow great, for then I would make the teaching, my discipleship, my love for you, and the community of the monks into my ego! — Hermann Hesse

In his heart he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him: Love this water! Stay near it! Learn from it! Oh yes, he wanted to learn from it, he wanted to listen to it. He who would understand this water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many other things, many secrets, all secrets. — Hermann Hesse

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation ... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
— Hermann Hesse

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

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

Love is like death. It is fulfillment and an evening after which nothing more may follow. — Hermann Hesse

So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused. — Hermann Hesse

And they didn't like to pay with trust and love, but rather with money and goods. They betrayed each other and expected being betrayed themselves. — Hermann Hesse

It was fortunate that love did not need words; or else it would be full of misunderstanding and foolishness. — Hermann Hesse

I thought of nothing but her. I expected everything from her. I was ready to lay everything at her feet. I was not in the least in love with her. Yet I had only to imagine that she might fail to keep the appointment, or forget it, to see where I stood. Then the world would be a desert once more, one day as dreary and worthless as the last, and the deathly stillness and wretchedness would surround me once more on all sides with no way out from this hell of silence except the razor. — Hermann Hesse

She taught him, that lovers must not part from one another after celebrating love, without one admiring the other, without being just as defeated as they have been victorious, so that with none of them should start feeling fed up or bored and get that evil feeling of having abused or having been abused. — Hermann Hesse

Sensuality isn't worth a hair more than spirituality, and it's the same the other way around. It's all one, everything is equally good. Whether you embrace a woman or make a poem, it's the same. So long as the main thing is there, the love, the burning, the emotion, it doesn't matter whether you are a monk on Mount Athos or a man about town in Paris. — Hermann Hesse

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret. — Hermann Hesse

Perhaps, people of our kind can't love. The childlike people can; that's their secret. — Hermann Hesse

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

Every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which most often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create. — Hermann Hesse

But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans. — Hermann Hesse

...he loved everything, he was full of joyous love towards everything that he saw. And it seemed to him that was just why he was previously so ill - because he could love nothing and nobody. — Hermann Hesse

With her, too, I danced more easily now, in a freer and more sprightly fashion, even though not so buoyantly and more self-consciously than with the other. Hermine had me lead, adapting herself as softly and lightly as the leaf of a flower, and with her, too, I now experienced all these delights that now advanced and now took wing. She, too, now exhaled the perfume of woman and love, and her dancing, too, sang with intimate tenderness the lovely and enchanting song of sex. — Hermann Hesse

In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. — Hermann Hesse

Often it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them. — Hermann Hesse

Gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force. — Hermann Hesse

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