1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

The world was beautiful when looked at in this way-without any seeking, so simple, so childlike.

I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.

Among mathematicians, even in those days, the reputation of being a good Glass Bead Game player meant a great deal; it was equivalent to being a very good mathematician.

So wie die Verruecktheit in einem hoeheren Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist die Schizophrenie der Anfang aller Kunst, aller Phantasie. (As insanity in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizophrenia the beginning of all art, all fantasy.)

All birth means separation from the All, the confinement within limitation, the separation from God, the pangs of being born ever anew. The return into the All, the dissolution of painful individuation, the reunion with God means the expansion of the soul until it is able once more to embrace the All.

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Every politician in the world is all for revolution, reason, and disarmament-but only in enemy countries, not in his own.