Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual’s search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. This Hermann Hesse quotes on life, demain will motivate you.
Best Hermann Hesse Quotes
- “Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “To achieve the possible, we must attempt the impossible again and again.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “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.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“Every experience has its element of magic.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “A tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me!… Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Beauty does not bring happiness to the one who possesses it, but to the one who loves and admires it.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“Loneliness is the way by which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation…and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Love must neither beg nor demand. Love must be strong enough to find certainty within itself. It then cease to be moved and becomes the mover.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.” ~ Hermann Hesse Quotes
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“Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “When the suffering becomes acute enough, one goes forward.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “The truth has a million faces, but there is only one truth.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“You have to try the impossible to achieve the possible” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “All the books of the world full of thoughts and poems are nothing in comparison to a minute of sobbing, when feeling surges in waves, the soul feels itself profoundly and finds itself. Tears are the melting ice of snow. All angels are close to the crying person.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “You can ride, you can travel with a friend of your own;
The final step you must take alone.
No wisdom is better than this when known:
That every hard thing is done alone.” ~ Hermann Hesse - “Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Your soul is the whole world.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Theory is knowledge that doesn’t work. Practice is when everything works and you don’t know why.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “A home isn’t just a roof over our heads. A home is a place where we feel loved and where we love others. It’s a place we belong. Love is what makes a home, not the contents inside the house or the number on the door. It’s the people waiting for us across the threshold, the people who will take us in their arms after a ad day and kiss us good night and good morning everyday for the rest of our lives.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “The truth is lived, not taught.” ~ Hermann Hesse
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“madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “A man who is ill-adjusted to the world is always on the verge of finding himself. One who is adjusted to the world never finds himself, but gets to be a cabinet minister.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.” ~ Hermann Hesse Quotes
- “I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books. I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening…” ~ Hermann Hesse
- “When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking because he has a goal because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.” ~ Hermann Hesse
