Hermann Hesse Quotes
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Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solely by the perfection of his repose, by the calmness of his figure, in which there was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace.
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Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long.
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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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You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing.
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My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.
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All life was a breath exhaled by God. All dying was a breath inhaled by God.
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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.
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The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
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Beauty does not bring happiness to the one who possesses it, but to the one who loves and admires it.
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In my brain were stored a thousand pictures.
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During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.
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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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Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike.
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I felt knowledge and the unity of the world circulate in me like my own blood.
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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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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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Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.
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You can ride, you can travel with a friend of your own; The final step you must take alone. No wisdom is better than this when known: That every hard thing is done alone.
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The river has taught me to listen; you will learn from it, too. The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths.
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Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
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A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to committ outrages.
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To achieve the possible, we must attempt the impossible again and again.
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In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.
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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.