Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in Calw, a city associated with the German Empire during his early years. He was educated at the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren, as well as at the Johannes-Kepler-Gymnasium, before pursuing a career conducted in the German language. Over the course of his life he held citizenship in Germany and in Switzerland.
Hesse worked as a writer, novelist, poet, painter, illustrator, librettist, and philosopher, and he is associated with the movement of existentialism. His notable works include Peter Camenzind, Demian, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game, each representing a distinct phase of his creative output. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature, one of the most significant recognitions of his career, and he also received the Pour le Mérite. In addition to his literary and philosophical work, he engaged with pacifism as a dimension of his public identity.
Hesse died on 9 August 1962 in Montagnola, the place where he spent his later years.
Quotes by Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse's insights on:
Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.
All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require the medium of theories, mythologies, and lies.
It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.
Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
As insanity in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizophrenia the beginning of all art, all fantasy.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force / For guarding us and helping us to live / Serenely let us move to distant places / And let no sentiments of home detain us.