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Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse Quotes

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Famous Hermann Hesse Quotes

“Se întâmplase în timpul unui concert, răsuna o muzică veche splendidă, când iată că între două măsuri ale unui piano interpretat de suflători mi se deschise din nou poarta spre lumea cealaltă, străbătusem cerul în zbor şi îl privisem pe Dumnezeu la lucru, suportasem dureri izbăvitoare, nu mai refuzasem nimic pe lumea asta, nu mă mai temusem de nimic pe lumea asta, acceptasem toate cele şi inima mea prinsese drag de tot ceea ce era în jurul meu''.”

“Ne, nė vienas žmogus ilgai negalėtų pakelti tokio liepsningo gyvenimo. Niekas negalėtų taip ilgai dieną naktį deginti visus savo žiburius, eikvoti visus savo vulkanus, niekas neįstengtų taip ilgai dieną naktį stovėti liepsnose, kasdien daug valandų su įkaitusia galva mąstyti, nuolatos mėgaudamasis, nuolatos kurdamas, nuolatos šviesus, su budriais jausmais ir nervais nelyginant pilis, už kurios langų kasdien skamba muzika, o naktimis tviska tūkstančiai žvakių.”

“Las cosas que vemos – dijo Pistorious con voz apagada – son las mismas cosas que llevamos en nosotros. No hay más realidad que la que tenemos dentro. Por eso la mayoría de los seres humanos vive tan irrealmente, porque cree que las imágenes exteriores son la realidad y no permiten a su propio mundo interior manifestarse. Se puede ser muy feliz así, desde luego. Pero cuando se conoce lo otro, ya no se puede elegir el camino de la mayoría. Sinclair, el camino de la mayoría es fácil, el nuestro, difícil. Caminemos.”

“And many years later, as an adult student of history, Knecht was to perceive more distinctly that history cannot come into being without the substance and the dynamism of this sinful world of egoism and instinctuality, and that even such sublime creations as the Order were born in this cloudy torrent and sooner or later will be swallowed up by it again...Nor was this ever merely an intellectual problem for him. Rather, it engaged his innermost self more than any other problem, and he felt it as partly his responsibility. His was one of those natures which can sicken, languish, and die when they see an ideal they have believed in, or the country and community they love, afflicted with ills.”

“Toltosi il berretto, la salutò profondamente come una principessa e se n'andò col cuore oppresso; doveva lasciarla perire. Rimase a lungo turbato, non aveva voglia di parlare con nessuno. Per quanto poco si assomigliassero, quella fiera e povera israelita gli ricordava in certo modo Lidia, la figlia del cavaliere. Amare donne come quelle era fonte di dolore. Ma per qualche tempo gli parve di non aver mai amato altre che queste due, la povera, inquieta Lidia e l'ombrosa, amara israelita.”

“Mas cada homem não é apenas ele mesmo; é também um ponto único, singularíssimo, sempre importante e peculiar, no qual os fenômenos do mundo se cruzam daquela forma uma só vez e nunca mais. Assim, a história de cada homem é essencial, eterna e divina, e cada homem, ao viver em alguma parte e cumprir os ditames da Natureza, é algo maravilhoso e digno de toda a atenção”

“Een wonderlijke vriendschap was het, die tussen Narziss en Goldmund tot ontplooiing kwam; er waren maar weinig mensen, die er plezier in hadden, en af en toe had het er zelfs de schijn van, dat de twee er zelf geen plezier in hadden. Narziss, denker die hij was, kon er in het begin het minst gemakkelijk mee uit de voeten. Hij was een en al geest, ook in de liefde; het was hem niet vergund zich zonder verder na te denken aan iemands aantrekkingskracht gewonnen te geven. Hij had in deze vriendschapsverhouding geestelijk de leiding, en gedurende een aanzienlijke periode bleef hij eenzaam in een leven van genegenheid, en wist hij, dat hij zijn vriend pas werkelijk de zijne zou kunnen noemen op het moment, dat hij hem tot inzicht gebracht zou hebben. Goldmund gaf zich, van binnen uit, met warmte, speels en zonder zich rekenschap te geven, over aan het nieuwe leven; Narziss zag hun verheven noodslot in het volle bewustzijn van zijn verantwoordelijkheid onder ogen.”

“Y lo que, por el contrario, me sucede a mí en las raras horas de placer, lo que para mí es delicia, suceso, elevación y éxtasis, eso no lo conoce, ni lo ama, ni lo busca el mundo más que si acaso en las novelas; en la vida, lo considera una locura. Y en efecto, si el mundo tiene razón, si esta música de los cafés, estas diversiones en masa, estos hombres americanos contentos con tan poco tienen razón, entonces soy yo el que no la tiene, entonces es verdad que estoy loco, entonces soy efectivamente el lobo estepario que tantas veces me he llamado, la bestia descarriada en un mundo que le es extraño e incomprensible, que ya no encuentra ni su hogar, ni su ambiente, ni su alimento.”

“[…] he still closes his eyes to the truth, refusing to acknowledge that clinging desperately to the notion of self, desperately wanting not to die, is the surest route to eternal death. On the other hand, the ability to die, to slough off one’s skin like a snake, to commit oneself to incessant self-transformation is what leads the way to immortality.”

“The thing he most compulsively desired, most stubbornly searched and strove for, was granted to him, but more abundantly than is good for a human being. Initially all he dreamed of and wished for, it later became his bitter lot. Those who live for power are destroyed by power, those who live for money by money; service is the ruin of the servile, pleasure the ruin of the pleasure-seeker. Thus it was Steppenwolf's independence that proved his downfall.”

“Can’t you get into your head, my learned friend, that you’ve taken a liking to me and feel that I matter because I’m a kind of mirror for you, because something in me responds to you and understands you? Actually, all human beings ought to be such mirrors for one another, responding and corresponding to each other in this way, but the thing is that cranks like you are oddities. You easily get lead astray, bewitched into thinking that you can no longer see or read anything in the eyes of other people, that there is nothing there that concerns you any more. And when a crank of your sort suddenly discovers a face again that really looks at him, in which he senses something akin to a response and an affinity, it naturally fills him with joy.”

“The Wolf trots to and fro, The world lies deep in snow, The raven from the birch tree flies, But nowhere a hare, nowhere a roe, The roe -she is so dear, so sweet - If such a thing I might surprise In my embrace, my teeth would meet, What else is there beneath the skies? The lovely creature I would so treasure, And feast myself deep on her tender thigh, I would drink of her red blood full measure, Then howl till the night went by. Even a hare I would not despise; Sweet enough its warm flesh in the night. Is everything to be denied That could make life a little bright? The hair on my brush is getting grey. The sight is failing from my eyes. Years ago my dear mate died. And now I trot and dream of a roe. I trot and dream of a hare. I hear the wind of midnight howl. I cool with the snow my burning jowl, And on to the devil my wretched soul I bear.”

“Your life will not be flat and dull even though you know that your war will never be victorious. It is far flatter, Harry, to fight for something good and ideal and to know all the time that you are bound to attain it. Are ideals attainable? Do we live to abolish death? No--we live to fear it and then again to love it, and just for death's sake it is that our spark of life glows for an hour now and then so brightly.”

“There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes, and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life. The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew all the time (or thought he knew) that he was in reality not a man, but a wolf of the Steppes. Clever men might argue the point whether he truly was a wolf, whether, that is, he had been changed, before birth perhaps, from a wolf into a human being, or had been given the soul of a wolf, though born as a human being; or whether, on the other hand, this belief that he was a wolf was no more than a fancy or a disease of his.”

“Yaşam konusunda bir fikrin vardı; içinde bir inanç, bir beklenti yaşıyordu; eylemlere, acılara ve özverilere hazırdın. Ama yavaş yavaş anladın ki, dünya hiç de senden eylemlerde ve özverilerde bulunmanı istemiyor; yaşam, kahraman rollerine ve benzeri şeylere yer veren bir kahramanlık destanı değil, insanların yiyip içmeler, kahve yudumlamalar, örgü örmeler, iskambil oynamalar ve radyo dinlemelerle yetinip hallerine şükrettikleri rahat bir orta sınıf evidir.”