Hermann Hesse Quotes
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The truth is lived, not taught.
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The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans.
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You have to try the impossible to achieve the possible.
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It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.
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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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Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.
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The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
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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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All this had always been and he had never seen it; he was never present. Now he was present and belonged to it. Through his eyes he saw light and shadows; through his mind he was aware of moon and stars.
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I felt knowledge and the unity of the world circulate in me like my own blood.
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Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.
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As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage, so every virtue, so our grasp of truth blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age, be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavour, be ready bravely and without remorse to find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.
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Toward seven o'clock every morning, I leave my study and step Out on the bright terrace; the sun already burns resplendent Between the shadows of the fig tree, makes the low wall of coarse Granite warm to the touch. Here my tools lie ready and waiting, Each one an intimate, an ally: the round basket for weeds: The zappetta, the small hoe with a short haft . . . There's a rake here as well, at at times a mattock and spade, Or two watering cans filled with water warmed by the sun. With my basket and small hoe in hand, facing the sun, I Go out for my morning walk.
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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.
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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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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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Good that you ask. You should always ask, always have doubts.
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Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness.
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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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Man designs for himself a garden with a hundred kinds of trees, a thousand kinds of flowers, a hundred kinds of fruit and vegetables. Suppose, then, that the gardener of this garden knew no other distinction between edible and inedible, nine-tenths of this garden would be useless to him. He would pull up the most enchanting flowers and hew down the noblest trees and even regard them with a loathing and envious eye. This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul. What does not stand classified as either man or wolf he does not see at all.
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Painting is marvelous; it makes you happier and more patient. Afterwards you do not have black fingers as with writing, but blue and red ones.
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The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind change. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity.
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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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To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.