All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide. Every one of them knows very well in some corner of his soul that suicide, though a way out, is rather a mean and shabby one, and that it is nobler and finer to be conquered by life than to fall by one's own hand.
HERMANN HESSE, Steppenwolf
In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.
The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.
HERMANN HESSE, letter read at Nobel banquet, Dec. 10, 1946
Love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.
HERMANN HESSE, Peter Camenzind
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.
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, letter, 1950
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
HERMANN HESSE, Steppenwolf
To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one.
HERMANN HESSE, The Glass Bead Game
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
HERMANN HESSE, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte
The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
HERMANN HESSE, The Glass Bead Game
When someone is seeking ... it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything ... because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
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.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.
HERMANN HESSE, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte
Even the most obscure hermit in the forest was not utterly alone; he too was enfolded in belonging.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
HERMANN HESSE, attributed, And I Quote
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, Steppenwolf
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,Siddhartha
Every path leads homeward, every step is birth.
HERMANN HESSE,Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another’s words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes.
HERMANN HESSE, Steppenwolf
I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.
HERMANN HESSE, Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
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