Hermann Hesse Quotes
"I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Fortune, May, Meaning, Value)
"Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud."
- Hermann Hesse
"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Home, Time, World)
"Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Eternity)
"As a body everyone is single, as a soul never."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Soul, Body)
"All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Men, Ideals)
"Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Happiness, Talent)
"The truth is lived, not taught."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Truth)
"Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Love, People)
"You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: People, Harmony)
"Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Thoughts, Words)
"Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: History, Books, Humanity, Words, Writing)
"Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves."
- Hermann Hesse
"When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane."
- Hermann Hesse
"What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Result, Value)
"What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Men, Nature, Being, Mystery)
"To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Faith, History, Chaos, Meaning, Order, Study)
"To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Happiness, Sacrifice, Self, Smile, Woman, Years)
"Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Leader, Responsibility)
"Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Mind, Opposites, World)
"There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge - that is everywhere."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Knowledge, Friend, Learning)
"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: People, Character, Courage, Rest)
"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
(Related: Death, Life, Love)
"The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Comfort, Fire, Liberty, Pleasure)
"Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go."
- Hermann Hesse
"Solitude is independence."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Independence, Solitude)
"If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Man, Nothing)
"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."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Hate)
"In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Creation, Spirit)
"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Purpose, Honor)
"It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Law)
"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Wisdom, Knowledge, Wonders)
"Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Meaning, Reality)
"Only the ideas that we really live have any value."
- Hermann Hesse
(Related: Ideas, Value)
"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
(Related: Life, People, Reality, World)