Quotes by Hermann Hesse

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

“I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”

“I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.”

“When someone is seeking, said Siddartha, It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only th...”

“You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.”

“You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live.”

“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...”

“In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.”

“O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so c...”

“Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding, Joseph exclaimed. If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere...”

“The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: "Making music together is t...”

“ muito mais lisonjeiro,(...)lutar-se por alguma coisa bela e ideal e saber ao mesmo tempo que no se conseguir alcan-la. Os ideais sero algo que se possa alcanar? Viveremos para cabar com a morte? N...”

“Cada poca, cada cultura, cada costume e tradio tem seu prprio estilo, tem sua delicadeza e sua severidade, suas belezas e crueldades, aceitam certos sofrimentos como naturais, sofrem pacientemente ...”

“Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noisel...”

“The music of decline had sounded, as in that wonderful Chinese fable; like a thrumming bass on the organ its reverberations faded slowly out over decades; its throbbing could be heard in the corrup...”

“Well," he said with equanimity, "you see, in my opinion there is no point at all in talking about music. I never talk about music. What reply, then, was I to make to your very able and just remarks...”

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”

“Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like, sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced Govinda, wrapped his ...”

“If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted ...”

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