Hermann Hesse Quotes - Page 16

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People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. It was a scandal that a breed of fearless and sinister people ran around freely, so they attached a nickname and a myth to these people to get even with them, to make up for the many times they had felt afraid.

Hermann Hesse

Character, People, Fearless

"Demian". Book by Hermann Hesse, p. 123, 1919.

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What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Hermann Hesse

Real, Unique, Men

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One of the disadwantages of school and learning, he thought dreamily, was that the mind seemed to have the tendency too see and represent all things as though they were flat and had only two dimensions. This, somehow, seemed to render all matters of intellect shallow and worthless.

Hermann Hesse

School, Two, Mind

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Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.

Hermann Hesse

Interesting, Miracle, Taught

Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha”, p.102, Jaico Publishing House

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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

Hermann Hesse

Pain, Air, Breathing

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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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.

Hermann Hesse

Life, Stars, Flower

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It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another's words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes.

Hermann Hesse

Eye, Men, Giving

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

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You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.

Hermann Hesse

Teacher, Thinking, Half

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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...Haller's sickness of the soul, as I now know, is not the eccentricity of a single individual, but the sickness of the times themselves, the neurosis of that generation to which Haller belongs, a sickness, it seems, that by no means attacks the weak and worthless only but, rather, precisely those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts.

Hermann Hesse

Mean, Soul, Generations

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.21, Macmillan

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The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.

Hermann Hesse

War, Mind, Annihilation

Hermann Hesse (2007). “Siddhartha”, Fine Communications

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A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.

Hermann Hesse

Broken, Childhood, Tree

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Beneath the Wheel: A Novel”, p.132, Macmillan

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For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

Hermann Hesse

Lonely, Men, Air

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!

Hermann Hesse

Dream, Lying, Night

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.36, Macmillan

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"You do not really love me — you love nobody. Is that not true?" "Maybe," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can — that is their secret."

Hermann Hesse

Art, Practice, People

"Siddhartha".

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A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone.

Hermann Hesse

Girl, Silly, Sleep

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.101, Macmillan

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Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.

Hermann Hesse

Pain, Laughing, Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.59, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.

Hermann Hesse

Teacher, Giving, Soldier

Hermann Hesse (2015). “Siddhartha: An Indian Tale”, p.51, Om Books International

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

Hermann Hesse

Failure, Men, Common

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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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

Travel, Journey, Years

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You're quite right there," he said. "I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.

Hermann Hesse

Dark, Years, Aquarius

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

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Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.

Hermann Hesse

Years, Age, Encounters

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Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.

Hermann Hesse

Dark, Names, World

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.

Hermann Hesse

Hands, Games, Laughing

Steppenwolf pt. 6 (1927)

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In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other.

Hermann Hesse

Blood, Chocolate, Mouths

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.196, Macmillan

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Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.

Hermann Hesse

Wisdom

"Siddhartha: An Indian Tale".

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Born: July 2, 1877
Died: August 9, 1962
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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