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
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
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
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