Quotes by Hermann Hesse

“A melody occurs to you; you sing it silently, inwardly ... ; you steep your being in it; it takes possession of all your strength and emotions, and during the time it lives in you, it effaces all t...”

“To hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.”

“Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish...It is perf...”

“There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should lo...”

“On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most base of all dependencies, by means of the game of dice. It was since that time, when he had stopped being a Samana in hi...”

“We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappe...”

“Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, ifhe is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.”

“The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanity's most powerful and a senseless desire - the desire to forget. Does not each generation, by mea...”

“Both the thoughts and the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them... from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.”

“ , , . , . , . ? ?”

“Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, b...”

“Ich werde stehen und warten.Ich werde mde werden.Ich werde nicht einschlafen.Ich werde sterben.”

“At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.”

“The world had been divided into two parts that sought to annihilate each other because they both desired the same thing, namely the liberation of the oppressed, the elimination of violence, and the...”

“For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.”

“And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come and the m...”

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do w...”

“One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error.”

“I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reck...”

“Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun's melting rays. Dreams and a restlessness of the soul came to him.”