Hermann Hesse
Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
Hermann HesseI have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
Hermann HesseWhen dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
Hermann HesseAll men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
Hermann HesseOnly the ideas that we really live have any value.
Hermann HesseHappiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.
Hermann HesseEvery age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.
Hermann HesseYou know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, single power, a single salvation... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
Hermann HesseOur mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.
Hermann HesseWhenever books are burned, sooner or later men also are burned.
Hermann HesseSeeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.
Hermann HesseThe call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.
Hermann HesseKnowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
Hermann HessePerhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret
Hermann HesseWords do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.
Hermann HesseAnd every occasion when a mask was torn off, an ideal broken, was preceded by this hateful vacancy and stillness, this deathly constriction and loneliness and unrelatedness, this waste and empty hell of lovelenessness and despair, such as I had now to pass through once more.
Hermann HesseLove must not entreat, nor demand. Love must have the power to find its own way to certainty. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract. Your love, Sinclair, is attracted by me. When it begins to attract me, I will come. I will not bestow a gift, I must be won.
Hermann HesseSolitude is independence.
Hermann HesseI have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.
Hermann HesseFor 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.
Hermann HesseIf I know what love is, it is because of you.
Hermann HesseFrom my thirteenth year on, it was clear to me that I wanted to be a poet or nothing at all.
Hermann HesseIt is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.
Hermann HesseIf you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us
Hermann HesseWhat 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.
Hermann Hesse