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Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse Quotes

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Famous Hermann Hesse Quotes

“...As every one of us knows, there are some festivals and games in which everything goes right, and every element lifts up, animates, and exalts every other, just as there are theatrical and musical performances which without any clearly discernible cause seem to ascend miraculously to glorious climaxes and intensely felt experiences, whereas others, just as well prepared, remain no more than decent tries.”

KnowsTryingWellsSeemsGamesFeltCausesElementsPerformancesPreparedMusicalLiftsGloriousDecentFestivalsTheatricalClimaxMusical Performance
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another.”

FacesFormTimeBornSawsExampleChangedThousandDiedPassionatePainfulMortalsReincarnationOnly TimeIncarnationRebornTransitoryNew Faces
Book:Siddhartha: An Indian Tale
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“When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. - Harry Haller”

FeelsWellsHas BeensSoulPainFacesPleasureRoomsAirBreathingContentmentWarmthTolerableLukewarmInsipidDevilish
Book:Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays
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“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

ThinkingMeanSaidHappensEyeAbleGoalFindingsSeekingObsessedHis EyesBeing FreeSiddhartha
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“If a night-moth were to concentrate its will on flying to a star or some equally unattainable object, it wouldn't succeed. Only, it wouldn't even try in the first place. A moth confines its search to what has sense and value for it, what it needs, what is indispensable to its life... if I imagined that I wanted under all circumstances to get to the North Pole, then to achieve it I would have to desire it strongly enough that my whole being was ruled by it. But if I were to decide to will that the pastor should stop wearing his glasses, it would be useless. That would be making a game of it.”

IfsNeedsShouldTryingFirstsEnoughWholeWould BeWantedDesireNightValuesGamesStarsAchieveObjectsCircumstancesSucceedGlassesFlyingUselessPastorIndispensableUnattainableMothsNorth Pole
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die.”

KnowsDoeDiesGoalSecretBehindsTeacherOne ThingTeachingCleanDoctrineWanderContinuingSublime
Author:Hermann Hesse
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