Hermann Hesse Quotes
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Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.
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If man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Therefore, fasting is useful, sir.
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He has robbed me, yet he has given me something of greater value . . . he has given to me myself.
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Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.
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An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.
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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.
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To achieve the possible, we must attempt the impossible again and again.
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But of all the water's secrets, he saw today only a single one-one that struck his soul. He saw that this water flowed and flowed, it was constantly flowing, and yet it was always there; it was always eternally the same and yet new at every moment! Oh, to be able to grasp this, to understand this!
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He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner... which he loved but also despised.... He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to be entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured.
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We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.
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One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.
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Friendship is identification and difference.
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A person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.
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...and gradually his face assumed the expressions which are so often found among rich people - the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.
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For mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root and blossom, every form in nature is echoed in us and originates in the soul whose being is eternity and is hidden from us but none the less gives itself to us for the most part in the power of love and creation.
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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.
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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.
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Solitude is independence.
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I have no desire to walk on water," said Siddhartha. "Let the old shamans satisfy themselves with such skills".
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How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?
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And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world.
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Every healthy person must have a goal in life and that life must have content.
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Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers.