1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awaking, and we were striving for an ever more perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd.

And all this, I said, just as today was the case with the beginnings of wireless, would be of no more service to man than as an escape from himself and his true aims, and a means of surrounding himself with an ever closer mesh of distractions and useless activities.

What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the Self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a Self; it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life.

If I were wise, I shouldn’t tell you. But I won’t be wise, Harry, not for this time. I’ll be just the opposite. So now mind what I say! You will hear it and forget it again. You will laugh over it, and you will weep over it. So look out! I am going to play with you for life and death, little brother, and before we begin the game I’m going to lay my cards on the table.

We lived like pilgrims and made no use of those contrivances which spring into existence in a world deluded by money.

I paint because I have no tail to wag.

One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: “Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept.” That was clear to me now.

Sentimentality is a basking in feelings that in reality you don’t take seriously enough to make the slightest sacrifice to or ever translate into action.

You could observe people’s folly, you could laugh at them or feel sorry for them, but you had to let them go their own way.