Hermann Hesse Quotes
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There was once a man, Harry, called the steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life.
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The many-voiced song of the river echoed softly. Siddhartha looked into the river and saw many pictures in the flowing water. The river's voice was sorrowful. It sang with yearning and sadness, flowing towards its goal ... Siddhartha was now listening intently...to this song of a thousand voices ... then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om - Perfection ... From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny.
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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.
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I shall begin my story with an experience I had when I was ten and attended our small town's Latin school.
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What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life.
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Everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast.
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Siddhartha has one single goal-to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow-to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought-that was his goal.
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I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
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Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.
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When a writer receives praise or blame, when he arouses sympathy or is ridiculed, when he is loved or rejected, it is not on the strength of his thoughts and dreams as a whole, but only of that infinitesimal part which has been able to make its way through the narrow channel of language and the equally narrow channel of the reader's understanding.
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A home isn't just a roof over our heads. A home is a place where we feel loved and where we love others. It's a place we belong. Love is what makes a home, not the contents inside the house or the number on the door. It's the people waiting for us across the threshold, the people who will take us in their arms after a ad day and kiss us good night and good morning everyday for the rest of our lives.
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. . . gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.
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You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.
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The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.
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One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error.
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One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now.
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The day had gone by just as days go by. I had killed it in accordance with my primitive and retiring way of life.
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Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.
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Fortunately, like most children, I had learned what is most valuable, most indispensable for life before school years began, taught by apple trees, by rain and sun, river and woods.
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Lovers should not separate from each other after making love without admiring each other, without being conquered as well as conquering, so that no feeling of satiation or desolation arises nor the horrid feeling of misusing or having been misused.
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Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else.
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It was still quiet in the house, and not a sound was heard from outside, either. Were it not for this silence, my reverie would probably have been disrupted by reminders of daily duties, of getting up and going to school.
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Your soul is the whole world.
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All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame.