1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sound foolish.

Most men will not swim before they are able to.” Is that not witty? Naturally, they won't swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they wont think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.

I would traverse not once more, but often the hell of my inner being. 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.

How foolish to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence. It has been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.

Your life will not be flat and dull eventhough you know that your war will never be victorious. It is far flatter, Harry, to fight for something goodand ideal and to know all the time that you are bound to attain it. Are ideals attainable? Do we live toabolish death? No--we live to fear it and then again to love it, and just for death's sake it is that our sparkof life glows for an hour now and then so brightly.

A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to committ outrages…

Retki su ljudi koji umeju da slušaju drugoga, nikad nikoga nisam sreo ko bi to umeo kao ti. I tome ću se učiti od tebe.

Rece ca aştrii râdem etern în înalt

Asadar, in momentul in care un om face primul pas dilatand acea unitate imaginara a eului sau pana la o dualitate, omul acesta devine aproape un geniu, sau cel putin este o exceptie rara si interesanta. In realitate insa, nici un eu, nici chiar cel mai naiv, nu este unitar, ci este un univers de o diversitate extraordinara, o mica bolta cereasca presarata cu stele, un haos de forma, de trepte si stari, de apucaturi mostenite si de posibilitati.