Hermann Hesse Quotes - Page 16

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One of the disadwantages of school and learning, he thought dreamily, was that the mind seemed to have the tendency too see and represent all things as though they were flat and had only two dimensions. This, somehow, seemed to render all matters of intellect shallow and worthless.

Hermann Hesse

School, Two, Mind

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It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another's words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes.

Hermann Hesse

Eye, Men, Giving

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

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You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.

Hermann Hesse

Teacher, Thinking, Half

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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...Haller's sickness of the soul, as I now know, is not the eccentricity of a single individual, but the sickness of the times themselves, the neurosis of that generation to which Haller belongs, a sickness, it seems, that by no means attacks the weak and worthless only but, rather, precisely those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts.

Hermann Hesse

Mean, Soul, Generations

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.21, Macmillan

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The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.

Hermann Hesse

War, Mind, Annihilation

Hermann Hesse (2007). “Siddhartha”, Fine Communications

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A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.

Hermann Hesse

Broken, Childhood, Tree

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Beneath the Wheel: A Novel”, p.132, Macmillan

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For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

Hermann Hesse

Lonely, Men, Air

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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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, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!

Hermann Hesse

Dream, Lying, Night

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.36, Macmillan

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"You do not really love me — you love nobody. Is that not true?" "Maybe," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can — that is their secret."

Hermann Hesse

Art, Practice, People

"Siddhartha".

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A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone.

Hermann Hesse

Girl, Silly, Sleep

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.101, Macmillan

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

Hermann Hesse

Pain, Laughing, Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.59, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.

Hermann Hesse

Teacher, Giving, Soldier

Hermann Hesse (2015). “Siddhartha: An Indian Tale”, p.51, Om Books International

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All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame.

Hermann Hesse

Failure, Men, Common

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

Hermann Hesse

Travel, Journey, Years

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Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.

Hermann Hesse

Dark, Names, World

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.

Hermann Hesse

Hands, Games, Laughing

Steppenwolf pt. 6 (1927)

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Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.

Hermann Hesse

Wisdom

"Siddhartha: An Indian Tale".

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No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.

Hermann Hesse

Religious, Sorry, Independence

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How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?

Hermann Hesse

Failing, Lone Wolf, Pleasure

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.30, Macmillan

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What a wonderful sleep it had been! Never had sleep so refreshed him, so renewed him, so rejuvenated him! Perhaps he had really died, perhaps he had been drowned and was reborn in another form. No, he recognized himself, he recognized his hands and feet, the place where he lay and the Self in his breast, Siddhartha, self-willed, individualistic. But this Siddhartha was somewhat changed, renewed. He had slept wonderfully. He was remarkably awake, happy and curious.

Hermann Hesse

Sleep, Self, Hands

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The way to innocence, to the uncreated and to God leads on, not back, not back to the wolf or to the child, but ever further into sin, ever deeper into human life.

Hermann Hesse

Children, Way, Innocence

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

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I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.

Hermann Hesse

Children, Believe, Men

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In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.

Hermann Hesse

Children, Self, Expression

"Peter Camenzind". Book by Hermann Hesse, 1904.

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Was that really love? I saw all these passionate people reel about and drift haphazardly as if driven by a storm, the man filled with desire today, satiated on the morrow, loving fiercely and discarding brutally, sure of no affection and happy in no love.

Hermann Hesse

Men, People, Storm

Hermann Hesse (1969). “Gertrude”

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In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other.

Hermann Hesse

Blood, Chocolate, Mouths

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.196, Macmillan

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Born: July 2, 1877
Died: August 9, 1962
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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