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Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse Quotes

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Famous Hermann Hesse Quotes

“There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that brought the welcome shock, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world. Sadly and yet deeply moved, I set myself to recall the last of these experiences. It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two of three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart.”

WorldHeartTwoPainLastsThreeHeavenHoursSawsDoorsWallMy HeartHolyAll ThingsMovedNotesDefenseAcceptedLovelyWelcomeWanderPianoShockConcertsNow And ThenRecallsGave UpOther WorldsBack AgainOld MusicSped
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“...Every ego so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though is was a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares this delusion.”

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Book:Steppenwolf
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“Man designs for himself a garden with a hundred kinds of trees, a thousand kinds of flowers, a hundred kinds of fruit and vegetables. Suppose, then, that the gardener of this garden knew no other distinction between edible and inedible, nine-tenths of this garden would be useless to him. He would pull up the most enchanting flowers and hew down the noblest trees and even regard them with a loathing and envious eye. This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul. What does not stand classified as either man or wolf he does not see at all.”

MenKindDoeSoulWould BeEyeTreeDesignFlowerThousandHundredGardenRegardFruitNineUselessDistinctionVegetablesGardenerEnviousLoathingEnchantingFruits And VegetablesSteppenwolfPull Ups
Book:Steppenwolf
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“How absurd these words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they're much more right than men...They're never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don't flatter and they don't intrude. They don't pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky.”

KnowsMenWayLifeShouldMaySometimesSpeakStarsAnimalSkyFlowerTerribleStonesAbsurdBehaveBeastPreyEmbarrassmentStars In The Sky
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“Yes, what we are doing is probably mad, and probably it is good and necessary all the same. It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are susceptible of rational treatment. Then there arise ideals such as those of the Americans or of the Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely. The likeness of man, once a high ideal, is in process of becoming a machine-made article. It is for madmen like us, perhaps, to ennoble it again.”

MenTryingMadeMatterReasonOrderProcessBecomingIdealsMachinesMadGood ThingsAriseRationalOppressionTreatmentArticlesSimplifyMadmenSusceptibleBolsheviks
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: "Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none easier. That is a fine thing. I hope you and I shall remain friends. Perhaps you too will learn how to make fugues, Joseph.”

PeopleMenWaySaidTwoEyeTogetherFineEasierBlueRaisedBest WayPianoFixedOld ManCheerfulBlue EyesUnimaginableFriendlinessStoolsFine ThingsFugue
Book:The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel
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“She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brook all came toward him in new and resplendent colors, belonged to him, and spoke to him in his own language. And instead of merely winning a woman he embraced the entire world and every star in heaven glowed within him and sparkled with joy in his soul. He had loved and had found himself. But most people love to lose themselves.”

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Book:Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse
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“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.”

KnowsHeartLastsLawArtistOrderFallFlowerDisappearGrievingExistentialismThinkerAgain And AgainFear Of DeathInstabilityTransitorySalvageGreat Dance
Book:Narcissus and Goldmund: A Novel
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“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, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.”

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Book:Siddhartha: An Indian Tale
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“Whether it is good or evil, whether life in itself is pain or pleasure, whether it is uncertain-that it may perhaps be this is not important-but the unity of the world, the coherence of all events, the embracing of the big and the small from the same stream, from the same law of cause, of becoming and dying.”

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Book:Siddhartha: An Indian Tale
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“Man is not by any means of fixed and enduring form (this, in spite of suspicions to the contrary on the part of their wise men, was the ideal of the ancients). He is nothing else than the narrow and perilous bridge between nature and spirit. His innermost destiny drives him on to the spirit and to God. His innermost longing draws him back to nature, the mother. Between the two forces his life hangs tremulous and irresolute.”

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Book:Steppenwolf
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“You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”

PeopleMenShouldYearsMindLongDoeReasonEnoughMomentsYoungValuesTakenJokesHundredEternityMereInjusticeAccidentsYoung ManOld PeopleSeriousness
Book:Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays
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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.”

NeedsDoeStillsReligiousIndependenceSorryBarsI'm SorryEarnestTime Of NeedTime And Money
Author:Hermann Hesse
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