Hermann Hesse
134 quotes
Biography
"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
"I 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."
"Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish."
"I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me."
"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 wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
"Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity."
"Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure."
"You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live."
"When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults."
"Love must not entreat,' she added, 'or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract."
"It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect."
"Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret."
"In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke."
"I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins."
"You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value."
"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 have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions."
"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."
"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 disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do."
"One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error."
"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."
"Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life."
"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 reckon with himself."
"...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still."
"I do want more. I am not content with being happy. I was not made for it. It is not my destiny. My destiny is the opposite."