1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing.

How foolish it is to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence.

I sped through heaven and saw god at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart.

Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.

All it has experienced, tasted, suffered: The course of years, generations of animals, Oppression, recovery, friendship of sun and - Wind Will pour forth each day in the song Of its rustling foliage, in the friendly Gesture of its gently swaying crown, In the delicate sweet scent of resinous Sap moistening the sleep-glued buds, And the eternal game of lights and Shadows it plays with itself, content.

All this had always been and he had never seen it; he was never present. Now he was present and belonged to it. Through his eyes he saw light and shadows; through his mind he was aware of moon and stars (p. 38).

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

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.