Hermann Hesse's Quotes

Solitude is independence.

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.

The truth is lived, not taught.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

The 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.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge - that is everywhere.

What 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.

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

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.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

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

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

It 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.

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

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Knowledge 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.

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

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 never again.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

Our 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.