1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

I had a feeling that he was unhappy and that he had an undesired, powerful way of seizing on people as if he wanted to snatch something from them that would comfort him.

On one part of the footpath where a thin trickle of water from a small spring kept it damp, I found … a swarm of … small, blue butterflies drinking the water. … I only went that way on sunny days and each time the dense, blue swarm was there, and each time it was a holiday.

All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker — no breath could both be in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential.

De um modo geral, não se deve temer a ninguém. Quando temos medo de alguém é porque demos a esse alguém algum poder sobre nós.

The world has become lovelier. I am alone, and I don't suffer from my loneliness. I don't want life to be anything other than what it is. I am ready to let myself be baked in the sun till I am done. I am eager to ripen. I am ready to die, ready to be born again. The world has become lovelier.

I thought of nothing but her. I expected everything from her. I was ready to lay everything at her feet. I was not in the least in love with her. Yet I had only to imagine that she might fail to keep the appointment, or forget it, to see where I stood. Then the world would be a desert once more, one day as dreary and worthless as the last, and the deathly stillness and wretchedness would surround me once more on all sides with no way out from this hell of silence except the razor.

No permanence is ours; we are a waveThat flows to fit whatever form it finds

No permanence is ours; we are a waveThat flows to fit whatever form it finds:Through night or day, cathedral or the caveWe pass forever, craving form that binds.

Sí, con todo, sé lo que es el amor, lo sé por ti.