Hermann Hesse Quotes

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Hermann Hesse

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

Hermann Hesse

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

Hermann Hesse

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

Hermann Hesse

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

Hermann Hesse

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

Hermann Hesse

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

Hermann Hesse

Solitude is independence.

Hermann Hesse

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Hermann Hesse

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

Hermann Hesse

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.

Hermann Hesse

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

Hermann Hesse

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up.

Hermann Hesse

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

Hermann Hesse

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

Hermann Hesse

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Hermann Hesse

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