Hermann Hesse Quotes
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Yes, I am going into the woods; I am going into the unity of all things.
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The world, Govinda my friend, is not imperfect, not to be seen as on a slow path toward perfection: No, it is perfect in every moment, all transgression already bears grace within itself, all little children already have the aged in themselves, all the sucklings death, all the dying eternal life.
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I was given the freedom to discover my own inclination and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength.
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So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.
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His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, following as ever no straight unbroken line, for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry and not to Nature and Life.
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A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone.
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A tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me!... Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
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Good that you ask. You should always ask, always have doubts.
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What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world.
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Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.
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The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.
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To nobody can you communicate in words and teachings, what happened to you in your hour of enlightenment.
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Love of God is not always the same as love of good.
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Our friendship has no other purpose, no other reason, than to show you how utterly unlike me you are.
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So you can't dance? Not at all? Not even one step? How can you say that you've taken any trouble to live when you won't even dance?
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Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.
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Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.
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In any case, the most lively young people become the best old people, not those who pretend to be as wise as grandfathers while they are still at school.
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What is meditation?... It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut-milk.
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You must find your dream, then the way becomes easy.
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Madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom.
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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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Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.
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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.