1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

If I were to reduce all my feelings and their painful conflicts to a single name, I can think of no other word but: dread. It was dread, dread and uncertainty, that I felt in all those hours of shattered childhood felicity: dread of punishment, dread of my own conscience, dread of stirrings in my soul which I considered forbidden and criminal.

La linea essenziale nel nostro destino è fatta di queste esperienze che nessuno vede.

Poche volte nella mia vita il dolore mi ha colpito così duramente, mai ho provato tanta disperazione e un tale senso di schiavitù.

I shall always remember how the peacocks’ tails shimmered when the moon rose amongst the tall trees, and on the shady bank the emerging mermaids gleamed fresh and silvery amongst the rocks…

Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to follow the path that leads to himself.

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.

None of us knew how terribly these two fine people suffered in secret. I do not think that they ever stopped loving each other, but deep down in their nature they did not belong to one another.

Es ist viel flacher, wenn du für etwas Gutes und Ideales kämpfst und nun meinst, du müssest es auch erreichen. Sind denn Ideale zum Erreichen da? Leben wir denn, wir Menschen, um den Tod abzuschaffen? Nein, wir leben, um ihn zu fürchten und dann wieder zu lieben, und gerade seinetwegen glüht das bißchen Leben manchmal eine Stunde lang so schön.

There I often walked along the shore, listened to the sea, and thought as I had done in my youth, with amazement and horror, about the sad and senseless confusion of life, that one could love in vain, that people who meant well toward each other should work out their destinies separately, each one going his own inexplicable way, and how each would like to help and draw close to the other and yet was unable to do so, as in troubled meaningless dreams.