Herman Hesse

Germany
2 Jul 1877 // 9 Aug 1962
Writer

Quotes

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Good that you ask -- you should always ask, always have doubts.

Demian
Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.

Gertrude
Your soul is the whole world.

Siddhartha
For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

Steppenwolf
In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.

Steppenwolf
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.

Siddhartha
Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.

Demian
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Siddhartha
Solitude is independence. It had 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.

Steppenwolf
We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.

Siddhartha
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays