Hermann Hesse Quotes

Be aware of too much wisdom!

His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, foll...

Times of terror and the deepest misery may arrive, but if there is to be any happiness in this miser...

To deal with history [life] means to abandon one's self to chaos but to retain a belief in the ordin...

If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; the...

...the Master and the boy followed each other as if drawn along the wires of some mechanism, until s...

The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly an...

Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed. “If only there were a dogma t...

Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Every so often he would ...

When the world is at peace, when all things are tranquil and all men obey their superiors in all the...

No permanence is ours; we are a waveThat flows to fit whatever form it finds:Through night or day, c...

And those of us who trust ourselves the least,Who doubt and question most, these, it may be,Will mak...

There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wis...

Granted, there is always much that is hidden, and we must not forget that the writing of history - h...

Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understand...

The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanit...

That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy - a game! Naturally, one can also do all ki...

Faith is stronger than so-called reason.

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am...

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribe...

I feel life trembling within me, in my tongue, on the soles of my feet, in my desire or my suffering...

Like an attack this melancholy comes from time to time. I don't know at what intervals, and slowly c...

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens...

Thoughts and sorrows seem to have remained on the other side of the mountains. Between tormented men...

When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them ...

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single sa...

On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most base of all dependencie...

Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solel...

...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his hear...

He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after the...

Just slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed something of the childlike people's wa...

And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of thin...

They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, t...

Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?" That the riv...

Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh,...

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm...

...for you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than force....

I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.

He was pleased with everything that he did and learned and the days and months passed quickly. But h...

Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, ifhe is able to think, if he is able to wa...

So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every g...

Once he traveled to a village to purchase a large rice harvest, but when he arrived the rice had alr...

If a transaction in progress appeared threatened with failure, if a shipment of goods seemed to have...

There is nothing to opinions, theymay be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support t...

The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perf...

One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- ...

When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easilyhappen that the only thing his eyes ...

He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner... which he loved but also despised.... He s...

Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.

Merchant: 'So you have lived on the possessions of others?'Saddhartha: 'Apparently. The merchant als...

Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he leteverything enter his mind, birthp...

After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time, Siddhartha realised that his d...

The “music of decline” had sounded, as in that wonderful Chinese fable; like a thrumming bass on the...

When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, “It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that ...

Thinking, he walked ever more slowly and asked himself, What is it now that you were hoping to learn...

Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness ...

When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes...

Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.

Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, ...

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wond...

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a ...

Most men will not swim before they are able to.

Within yourself is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.

Every true reader could, even if not one new book were published, spend decades and centuries studyi...

Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom.

No permanence is ours; we are a waveThat flows to fit whatever form it finds:Through day or night, c...

The mind cannot live in nature, only against nature, only as its counterpart.

If I know what love is, it is because of you.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.

It is easier to bear the worries of wandering than to find peace in your hometown, where only the sa...

The Wolf trots to and fro,The world lies deep in snow,The raven from the birch tree flies,But nowher...

A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement - yet it had been the truth.

At Night on the High SeasAt night, when the sea cradles meAnd the pale star gleamLies down on its br...

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue...

Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a fe...

If a night-moth were to concentrate its will on flying to a star or some equally unattainable object...

Solitude is independence.

Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to follow the path that leads to himself.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have nev...

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unre...

The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance...

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.

The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perf...

Either a man goes and hangs himself, and then he hangs sure enough, and he'll have his reasons for i...

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while th...

And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble...

Liberation from ego is what we shramanas are seeking, O Exalted One. If I were your disciple, O Vene...

...your tranquil yes to the changing over into the formless void of the unlimited.

É muito mais lisonjeiro,(...)lutar-se por alguma coisa bela e ideal e saber ao mesmo tempo que não s...

An enlightened man had but one duty--to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope ...

...and as far as talent is concerned, there will be such an excess that our artists will become thei...

Often it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them.

Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a fe...

The middle class prefers comfort to pleasure convenience to liberty and a pleasant temperature to ...

All the girls I had ever loved were mine. Each gave me what she alone had to give and to each I gave...

What we can and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egois...

And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and fi...

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life...