Hermann Hesse

“They were … neither beautiful nor ugly[.]”

— Hermann Hesse

Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.

— Hermann Hesse

Friendship is identification and difference

— Hermann Hesse

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

— Hermann Hesse

The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself.

— Hermann Hesse

“All of this had always existed, and he had not seen it;”

— Hermann Hesse

The cup was emptied and would never be filled again.

— Hermann Hesse

“Suffering was life, full of suffering was the world.”

— Hermann Hesse

“...inasmuch as every man takes the sufferings that fall to his share as the greatest.”

— Hermann Hesse

That seems to be the way of things. Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that.

— Hermann Hesse

I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.

— Hermann Hesse

How foolish it is to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence.

— Hermann Hesse

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

— Hermann Hesse

“If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the smartest thing he can do.”

— Hermann Hesse

Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to follow the path that leads to himself

— Hermann Hesse

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

— Hermann Hesse

Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children; often…

— Hermann Hesse

“Everything was a lie, everything stank, everything stank of lies, everything feigned meaning and happiness and beauty, and yet everything was decaying…

— Hermann Hesse

“Good stories are like those noble wild animals that make their home in hidden spots, and you must often settle down at…

— Hermann Hesse

“Siddhartha was thus loved by everyone. He was a source of joy for everybody, he was a delight for them all. But…

— Hermann Hesse

Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has…

— Hermann Hesse

Sentimentality is a basking in feelings that in reality you don't take seriously enough to make the slightest sacrifice to or ever…

— Hermann Hesse

You must find your dream...but no dream lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any…

— Hermann Hesse

Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by…

— Hermann Hesse

“Even more remote from his way of thinking, even more impossible than any other thought, would have been words such as this:…

— Hermann Hesse

“It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of…

— Hermann Hesse

“...I thought, with a certain amount of sorrow, how much enormous talent there must be in the world for nature simply to…

— Hermann Hesse

Here and there in the ancient literature we encounter legends of wise and mysterious games that were conceived and played by scholars,…

— Hermann Hesse

“Kod mnogih od onih nebrojenih koji su se u novije vreme umorno i s verom poklonički vraćali postojbinskoj kolevci čovečanstva i kulture…

— Hermann Hesse

“He was nothing but a listener, completely concentrated on listening, completely empty, he felt, that he had now finished learning to listen.…

— Hermann Hesse

As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage, so every virtue, so our grasp of truth…

— Hermann Hesse

Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed…

— Hermann Hesse

“genius in love is the yearning to handover”

— Hermann Hesse

In my brain were stored a thousand pictures.

— Hermann Hesse

What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

— Hermann Hesse

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

— Hermann Hesse

“With a thousand eyes, the river looked at him”

— Hermann Hesse

“The ideas we really live have any value.”

— Hermann Hesse

“content with small pleasures and yet never really satisfied!”

— Hermann Hesse

“Let every reader do as his conscience bids him.”

— Hermann Hesse