Hesse Quotes & Sayings

Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal ,anything but eternal are our garments and the style of our hair ,our bodies themselves.I am wearing a rich mans garments because i have been a rich man but i am no rich man anymore what i will be tomorrow i dont know — Hermann Hesse

Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them. — Hermann Hesse

Sentimentality is a basking in feelings that in reality you don't take seriously enough to make the slightest sacrifice to or ever translate into action. — Hermann Hesse

Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic, and each symbol is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the inner part of the world, where you and I and day and night are all one. — Hermann Hesse

Jo Wood was sound, sound as a bell. Solid, cynical, amused and occasionally amusing, he did not appear to be very intelligent, and unlike Richard Fawcett and me, seemed uninterested in words, ideas and the world. But one day he said to me:
'I've got it now. It's reading isn't it?'
'I'm sorry?'
'You read a lot, don't you? That's where it all comes from. Reading. Yeah, reading.'
The next time I saw him he had a Herman Hesse novel in his hands. I never saw him again without a book somewhere on his person. When I heard, some years later, that he had got into Cambridge I thought to myself, I know how that happened. He decided one day to read. — Stephen Fry

No person has ever been completely himself, but each one strives to become so, some gropingly, others more lucidly, according to his abilities. Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant. — 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

He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new. — Hermann Hesse

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

It is good, he thought, to taste for oneself all that it is necessary to know. Already as a child I learned that worldly desires and wealth were not good things. I have known this for a long time but have only now experienced it. And now I do know it, know it not only with my memory but with my eyes, with my heart, and with my stomach. How glad I am to know it! — Hermann Hesse

Maybe we can't barter our feelings away, trading good deeds for bad ones and expecting to become whole. — Monica Hesse

The world was beautiful when looked at in this way - without any seeking, so simple, so childlike. — 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

But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one touched his soul. He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment! Great be he who would grasp this, understand this! He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices. — Hermann Hesse

I don't know. I really don't know. Perhaps that would be best, I thought I wanted it myself. But today I'm no longer sure what I really want and desire. Before, everything was simple, as simple as letters in my textbook. Now nothing is simple any more, not even the letters. Everything has taken on many meanings and faces. I don't know what will become of me, I can't think about that now. — Hermann Hesse

Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, — Hermann Hesse

I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray that finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him. — Hermann Hesse

He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman. — Hermann Hesse

It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more. — Herman Hesse

The schoolhouse, on this sunlit morning, has begun to take on the scent of girls with wind-blown hair, with seeds in their pockets, with road-hardened feet. — Karen Hesse

Haller belongs to those who have been caught between two ages, who are outside of all security and simple acquiescence. He belongs to those whose fate it is to live the whole riddle of human destiny heightened to the pitch of a personal torture, a personal hell. — Hermann Hesse

Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe. — Hermann Hesse

I have already given some account of the Steppenwolf's outward appearance. He gave at the very first glance the impression of a significant, an uncommon, and unusually gifted man. His — 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

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

But what a path it has been! I have had to pass through so much foolishness, so much vice, so much error, so much nausea and disillusionment and wretchedness, merely in order to become a child again and be able to start over. But all of this was just and proper. — Hermann Hesse

And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him — Hermann Hesse

Not really, definitely not from any outside sources. If there was any pressure it was just from ourselves. We just wanted to make sure that what we were doing was right. But, you know, when you're dealing with any kind of art, I think pressure really doesn't help at all. All you can do is give what comes out of you - and that's what we did. — Chris 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

They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much - but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing? — Hermann Hesse

Nothing is harder yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.
Spoken by Albertus Secundus in Das Glasperlenspiel — Hermann Hesse

Many verses of the holy books, above all the Upanishads of Sama-Veda spoke of this innermost thing. It is written: "Your soul is the whole world." It says that when a man is asleep, he penetrates his innermost and dwells in Atman. There was wonderful wisdom in these verses; all the knowledge of the sages was told here in enchanting language, pure as honey collected by the bees. — Hermann Hesse

Fortunately, like most children, I had learned what is most valuable, most indispensable for life before school years began, taught by apple trees, by rain and sun, river and woods ... — Hermann Hesse

If a person were to concentrate all his will power on a certain end, then he would achieve it. That's all. — Hermann Hesse

Is not every life, every work fine? — Hermann Hesse

Painting is marvelous; it makes you happier and more patient. Afterwards you do not have black fingers as with writing, but blue and red ones. — Hermann Hesse

My gift and uniqueness consist in this: I store images of the external world in my head, and out of them I am able to produce new images and arrangements only for myself. I can conceive the entire world in my mind. That is, I can create it anew. — Hermann Hesse

In any case, the life of a drunk is presumably livelier than that of the ordinary well-behaved citizen. And then - I read that once somewhere - the life of a hedonist is the best preparation for becoming a mystic.
People like St. Augustine are always the ones that become visionaries. — Hermann Hesse

If what matters in a person's 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 one's external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless. — 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

Beginning to doubt the gods, there is only Atman ... and where is Atman found but in the self? But where is this self? — Hermann Hesse

Half smiling, with imperturbable brightness and friendliness, the Buddha looked steadily at the stranger and dismissed him with a hardly visible gesture. 'You are clever, O Samana,' said the Illustrious One, 'you know how to speak cleverly, my friend. Be on your guard against too much cleverness. — Hermann Hesse

I felt and saw the night outside deep within me. Wind and wetness, autumn, bitter smell of foliage, scattered leaves of the elm tree. — Hermann Hesse

I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him. — Eric Clapton

The Wolf trots to and fro,
The world lies deep in snow,
The raven from the birch tree flies,
But nowhere a hare, nowhere a roe,
The roe -she is so dear, so sweet -
If such a thing I might surprise
In my embrace, my teeth would meet,
What else is there beneath the skies?
The lovely creature I would so treasure,
And feast myself deep on her tender thigh,
I would drink of her red blood full measure,
Then howl till the night went by.
Even a hare I would not despise;
Sweet enough its warm flesh in the night.
Is everything to be denied
That could make life a little bright?
The hair on my brush is getting grey.
The sight is failing from my eyes.
Years ago my dear mate died.
And now I trot and dream of a roe.
I trot and dream of a hare.
I hear the wind of midnight howl.
I cool with the snow my burning jowl,
And on to the devil my wretched soul I bear. — Hermann Hesse

What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the world with an insurance policy in my pocket guaranteeing my return in the event of a disappointment, like some cautious traveller who would be content with a brief glimpse of the world. On the contrary, I desire that there should be hazards, difficulties and dangers to face; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for privation and suffering. — Hermann Hesse

In every truth, the opposite is equally true. A truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. — Hermann Hesse

At that time two opposing concepts of the Game called forth commentary and discussion. The foremost players distinguished two principal types of Game, the formal and the psychological. — Hermann Hesse

I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha. He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time. — Hermann Hesse

All the women of this fevered night, all that I had danced with, all whom I had kindled or who have kindled me, all whom I had courted, all who had clung to me with longing, all whom I had followed with enraptured eyes were melted together and had become one, the one whom I held in my arms. — Hermann Hesse

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

I understood it all. I understood Pablo. I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me I heard his ghastly laughter. I knew that all the hundred thousand pieces of life's game were in my pocket. A glimpse of its meaning had stirred my reason and I was determined to begin the game afresh. I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often, the hell of my inner being. — Hermann Hesse

Now Livie's gone west, out of the dust, on her way to California, where the wind takes a rest sometimes. And I'm wondering what kind of friend I am, wanting my feet on that road to another place,instead of Livie's. — Karen 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

The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly - yes, and this is also very good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person. — Hermann Hesse

Theory is knowledge that doesn't work. Practice is when everything works and you don't know why. — Hermann Hesse

My life had become weariness. It had wandered in a maze of unhappiness that led to renunciation and nothingness; it was bitter with the salt of all human things; yet it had laid up riches, riches to be proud of. — Hermann Hesse

For there is not a single human being, not even the primitive Negro, not even the idiot, who is so conveniently simple that his being can be explained as the sum of two or three principal elements; and to explain so complex a man as Harry by the artless division into wolf and man is a hopelessly childish attempt. Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands. — Hermann Hesse

The river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future. — Hermann Hesse

The highest art ... sets down its creations and trusts in their magic, without fear of not being understood. — 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

This one was so lively and talkative, she paid no attention to him or his shyness, so he withdrew his feelers awkwardly and a little offended crawled back into himself like a snail brushed by a cartwheel. — Hermann Hesse

And out of the awareness of sameness grew the desire for differentiation. — Hermann Hesse

I was not a good scholar, and during my last year at school I made little effort. This was not due to laziness ... , but to a state of youthful day-dreaming and indifference ... that was only ... pierced when creative desire enveloped me like ether. — Hermann Hesse

Gratitude is not a virtue I believe in, and to me it seems hypocritical to expect it from a child. — Hermann Hesse

I am interested in solving an unknown factor of art and an unknown factor of life. — Eva Hesse

If I were wise, I shouldn't tell you. But I won't be wise, Harry, not for this time. I'll be just the opposite. So now mind what I say! You will hear it and forget it again. You will laugh over it, and you will weep over it. So look out! I am going to play with you for life and death, little brother, and before we begin the game I'm going to lay my cards on the table. — Hermann Hesse

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good. — Hermann Hesse

If you order, with the absolute conviction that his wish will come, it will happen that way. But you mix the desire, fear and regret, and that is a contradiction. — Hermann Hesse

Every experience has its element of magic. — Hermann Hesse

Possibly the apparent relapse they had suffered was not a fall and a cause for suffering, but a leap forward and a positive act. — Hermann Hesse

Every ego so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though is was a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares this delusion. — Hermann Hesse

But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking. — Herman Hesse

Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun. — Hermann Hesse

A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement - yet it had been the truth. — 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

How absurd these words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they're much more right than men ... They're never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don't flatter and they don't intrude. They don't pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky. — Hermann Hesse

But each person is not only himself, he is also the unique, very special point, important and noteworthy in every instance, where the phenomena of the world meet, once only and never again in the same way. And so every person's story is important, eternal, divine; and so every person, to the extent that he lives and fulfills nature's will, is wondrous and deserving of full attention. In each of us spirit has become form, in each of us the created being suffers, in each of us a redeemer is crucified. Not — Hermann Hesse

Nothing is caused by demons. There are no demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait, and fast. — Hermann Hesse

The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself. — Hermann Hesse

I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace. — Hermann Hesse

You broke through the humor of my little theater and tried to make a mess of it, stabbing with knives and spattering our pretty picture-world with the mud of reality. — Hermann Hesse

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it, without searching ... just looked, simply and innocently. — Hermann Hesse

My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life. — Hermann Hesse

One of the disadwantages of school and learning, he thought dreamily, was that the mind seemed to have the tendency too see and represent all things as though they were flat and had only two dimensions. This, somehow, seemed to render all matters of intellect shallow and worthless ... — Hermann Hesse

During that very first conversation, about the araucaria, he called himself the Steppenwolf, and this too estranged and disturbed me a little. What an expression! However, custom did not only reconcile me to it, but soon I never thought of him by any other name; nor could I today hit on a better description of him. A wolf of the Steppes that had lost its way and strayed into the towns and the life of the herd, a more striking image could not be found for his shy loneliness, his savagery, his restlessness, his homesickness, his homelessness. — Hermann Hesse

When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. — Hermann Hesse

The First Flowers
Beside the brook
Toward the willows,
During these days
So many yellow flowers have opened
Their eyes into gold.
I have long since lost my innocence, yet a memory
Touches my depth, the golden hours of morning, and gazes
Brilliantly upon me out of the eyes of flowers.
I was going to pick flowers;
Now I leave them all standing
And walk home, an old man. — Hermann Hesse

The world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky — Hermann Hesse

Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness." "Are — Hermann Hesse

seriousness, young man, is an accident of time — 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

Doesn't your learning reveal to you that the reason why I please you and mean so much to you is because I am a kind of looking-glass for you, because there is something in me that answers you and understands you? Really, we ought all to be such looking-glasses to each other and answer and correspond to each other. — Hermann Hesse

To nobody can you communicate in words and teachings, what happened to you in your hour of enlightenment. — Hermann Hesse

This little theater of mine has as many doors into as many boxes as you please, ten or a hundred thousand, and behind each door exactly what you seek awaits you. It is a pretty cabinet of pictures, my dear friend; but it would be quite useless to go through it as you are. You would be checked and blinded by it at every turn by what you are pleased to call your personality. You have no doubt guessed long since that the conquest of time and the escape from reality, or however else it may be that you choose to describe your longing, means simply the wish to be relieved of your so-called personality. That is the prison where you lie. — Hermann Hesse

We marked men were not at all worried about the shape the future would take. — Hermann Hesse

Don't ask what the work is. Rather, see what the work does. — Eva Hesse

Out of this moment when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more himself than before, firmer in his resolve. — Hermann Hesse

How foolish it is to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence. — Hermann Hesse

But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. — Hermann Hesse