Quotes by Hermann Hesse

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Perfect music... It comes from balance. Balance comes from right, right comes from the meaning of things. That's why you can talk about music only with a man who has learned the meaning of the world.

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Sometimes we do this and that easily, carelessly and forgetting about our obligations, as if apparently everything could happen the other way around. At other times, at other times, nothing can be different from the way it is, nothing is easy and duty-free, and every breath we take is controlled by some serious, external force, fate.

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Oh, music! A melody comes to your mind, you silently hum it to yourself, so that it rips through your insides, so that it takes over all your strength and movements - and for the moments that it lives in you, it extinguishes all eventualities, bad, rough and sad things in your soul, let the world ring in it and the heaviness it turns the frozen into flying!

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We cannot close our heart from life, but we can teach it to rise above chance and face pain unbroken.

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I thought I now knew what love was, I thought I was wise, I was comforted, I looked at the world with new eyes, I felt that I was closer to life and that I benefited from it more deeply. But now that too was over, the purity, the comfort, the serenity were gone, I only felt the storm and the flames, my heart surrendered with a jubilant tremor, it was no longer interested in life, it only wanted to burn to ashes in its own fire.

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Fate is unfair, life is capricious and cruel, goodness and reason do not rule in nature. Goodness and reason do exist, but only in us, humans, who are otherwise toys of chance. Still, we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for an hour: we can get close to each other in times of great need, we can meet with understanding eyes, we can love each other and offer comfort.

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We always set the boundaries of our personality too narrowly. We count only what we call individual and what we distinguish from others. However, we all carry the whole world within us, (...) in the same way, our souls contain everything that the human soul has ever experienced.

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You have dreams, I know, that you keep from me. I don't even want to know them. But I say live those dreams, play them out, build altars to them.

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If we hate someone, then in their image we hate something that is inside us. What we don't have doesn't bother us.

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There was no fight between us, no breakup, not even a fight. I only said one, actually innocent word to him - but this was the moment when an illusion that held us together crumbled into colorful pieces.

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We can ponder, reason, it doesn't make much sense. One does not act according to the way one thinks, one does not consider one's steps, rather one listens to one's heart.

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It happens to me that I see it this way: the most beautiful and wonderful of all that exists is still the beautiful bird that floats freely above. At other times, there is nothing more enchanting than a white butterfly with red eyes on its wing or an evening sunbeam breaking through the clouds, when it shines, but the light does not blind, and the whole world seems happy and innocent. (...) Everything is very beautiful if we look at it at the right moment.

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The experience was real. It radiated from him and changed him, pulling another person to his side. Her loneliness broke through, she loved again, (...) she could smile again, laugh again!

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Intimate trust shone through our smiles. (...) At that time, I almost had the feeling: maybe I should just stretch out my hand towards happiness, so that I would never let it go - but I never did it, because I wanted to wait until one day I saw passion and longing in Gertrude. sign. However, he was breathing steadily, and it didn't look like he wanted to change, in fact, it often seemed to me as if he was almost asking me not to disturb our silent harmony.

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Yes. We are different. One of them goes wild when they tell him the truth, and the other can't stand the phrases.

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There is nothing I want to be free of except the feeling that weakness robs me of freedom. I want to feel that pain and pleasure feed from the same source, both are the movement of the same force, (...) and both are beautiful and necessary.

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I think that the line between youth and old age can be precisely drawn in life. Youth ends with selfishness, old age begins with a life lived for others. My opinion is this: young people get a lot of pleasure and a lot of suffering from life because they live only for themselves. Every desire and every idea is important to them, they taste every joy, but also every pain. (...) This is youth. But for most people, there comes a time when all that changes, when they start living for others.

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Everyone has their own soul, which cannot be merged with another's. One person can approach the other, talk to him, two people can find each other. But the soul is like a flower, its root binds it to one place - it cannot go to another flower, because it cannot leave its soil. Flowers send out their scent and seeds to reach each other; but where the seed arrives is not decided by the flower, but by the wind.

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Those who love each other and get married, or those who form friendships, do not look for beauty in the moment, and do not want their feelings to pass quickly.

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Our greatest joys leave behind the greatest need and fade away the fastest.

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The mountain peak cannot approach the valley, but people can approach each other.

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How could it happen that while kneeling in bed in the morning or by candlelight at night, we committed ourselves to the Good, the Light, turned to God and made a holy vow to declare war on sin and Evil, just a few hours later we miserably betrayed our holy vow and determination...?

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Love must have the strength to find its own certainty. From then on, he is not only attracted: he himself begins to attract.

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If a person finds his dream, his path will be easy. But no dream lasts forever, each one is replaced by another, and none should be held captive.

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There is pain in every human relationship, and... between two people, even if they are connected by very strong threads, there is still a small distance that only love can bridge, but it also has to fight for it every moment.

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Happiness is a matter of love, nothing else. A person who can love is a happy person.

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One must attempt the impossible to achieve the possible.

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I have experienced in my body and soul that sin has been very useful to me, pleasure, longing for possession, vanity, and even the most shameful despair have been useful to me, so that I can learn to give up my opposition, learn to love the world, so that I no longer measure something that I want, to the world I imagined, to the perfection I imagined, but to be satisfied with it now, to love it as it is, and to be happy that I am a part of it.

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I'm telling you: our friendship has no other purpose than to let you experience how different you are from me.

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If someone finds what he needs, he should not thank it to chance, but to himself, to his own longing, to his own compelling force.

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Everyone has only one real mandate: to find themselves. He can end up as a poet, as a madman, as a prophet, or as a criminal. It's none of our business, and ultimately it doesn't matter. Our job is not to invent a destiny for ourselves, but to find ourselves and live it fully and unbroken.

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Until we recognize it, take it seriously, respect ourselves, come to terms with ourselves and live our own lives, we are just like marionettes, obeying external influences and laws, living a foreign life.

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This primitive, comfortable, little-to-do modern world oozes you, it finds you demanding, greedy, one dimension richer than you should be. People like us cannot live and enjoy life these days. Those who yearn for music instead of pretense, pleasure instead of entertainment, soul instead of money, real work instead of hustle and bustle, passion instead of play, will not find their home in this attractive world.

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I really understand why you hate politics, get discouraged by the chatter and irresponsible bustle of the press, why you doubt, (...) how people of our time think, read, play music, celebrate, and cultivate! You are right, prairie wolf, you are perfectly right, yet you perish.

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Every man's life is an attempt to reach himself. Every man's life is a guess of a path. No one has ever been completely and completely themselves, yet everyone tries to be themselves: some groping, some as they can.

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Where friendships run together, for an hour the whole world seems like a motherland.

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People are afraid now because they have never believed in themselves.

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Because man does the greatest and only meaningful thing he can do when he strives to realize himself with his natural abilities. That's why I told you so often in the past: don't copy the example of the thinker or the ascetic, but be yourself, strive to realize yourself!

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Countless friends surrounded me in my shining life; now that it's fogged up, none can be seen.

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Love doesn't ask, it doesn't demand. Love must be strong enough to prove itself. Then you are no longer attracted, but attracted.

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We understand each other, but everyone can only decipher it for themselves.

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The meaning and essence was not somewhere behind things, but in them, in everything.

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There is a clearing of silence within you, a hidden sanctuary to which you can return at any time and be who you really are.

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God, how soon the time will come when I will no longer see her, I will no longer hear her firm, reassuring steps in the house, I will not find her flowers on the table! And what have I achieved so far? I was dreaming, rocking in pleasure instead of winning it, fighting for it, drawing it to me forever! I remembered everything he had ever said about true love, a hundred gentle words of warning, a hundred quiet seductions, promises perhaps. And I started something with them? Nothing! Nothing!

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Those who are struck by fate from the outside, it cuts down like an arrow to the game. He strengthens and makes a god whose destiny comes from within and from his own self.

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In the life of the average person of our time, the few big holidays observed out of habit are the few occasions when he follows ideals. At New Year's, he shakes his head or sighs emotionally because of the impermanence of life and the rushing time, he celebrates Easter and Pentecost as a celebration of the awakening of spring and rebirth, and he visits the cemetery on All Saints' Day. And at Christmas, he treats himself to a few days off, buys his wife a new dress, and his children some toys. Many share the joy of the little ones somewhat resignedly; they look at the glittering Christmas tree with painful childhood memories, and when they see their gifted, happy children, they think: just rejoice and enjoy the happiness, life will soon rob you of all joy and innocence anyway.

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For me, trees have always been the most authentic teachers. I greatly appreciate the trees of forests and groves that live in tribal and family bonds. But I have even more respect for those who stand alone. They are like a lonely person. Not like hermits who retreat from the world out of weakness, but like spiritual giants who live in retreat, like Beethoven or Nietzsche. The world trembles at the tip of their branches, their roots rest in infinity; but they don't get involved, but fight with all their vitality for one thing: to complete themselves according to their own laws, to shape their image, to show what they are.

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Softness is stronger than hardness, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than violence.

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We can imitate and fake everything in the world, except love. Love cannot be stolen or imitated, love resides only in a heart that can give itself away from everything. It is the source of all art.

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No precious treasure is so unshakably beautiful that habit and lovelessness do not deprive it of its luster.

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Only love gives meaning to life: this means: the more love and devotion we are capable of, the more meaningful our life becomes.

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My life - a dry branch - is shedding its leaves. Oh, too colorful world, we're up to our necks, that's enough, we've lived up to our necks here with your food and drink! What is still blooming today, where will it be tomorrow?

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When I sometimes compared myself to others, I was often proud and conceited, but at the same time often depressed and humiliated. I have often considered myself a genius, often half-mad. I couldn't share in the joys and life of people my age, because of this I often blamed myself, I struggled with worries, as if I was hopelessly separated from them, as if life was closed to me.

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If life calls, the heart should only be ready to say goodbye and start anew, to surrender to other, new relationships with courage and without any sadness. Because in the beginning everything is hidden by a charm that protects and helps to live.

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Art is a delicate and sensitive membrane between us and the heart of the world, and of course it is better to cover a person with a thin membrane than with armor.

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It is much easier to yearn than to learn from past experiences.

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Loneliness is independence (...). Cold, oh yes, but still, wonderfully still and vast, like the icy, still space in which the stars revolve.

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The true seeker cannot accept any doctrine, the one who really wants to find. However, the one who found the treasure can approve everything, every teaching, every path, every goal, nothing separates him from all the others, from the thousands and thousands who live in the Eternal and breathe his soul.

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The river is everywhere at the same time, at its source and mouth, at the waterfall, at the ravine, at the dam, in the sea, on top of the mountains, everywhere at the same time, (...) for him only the present exists, he knows neither the shadow of the past nor the the shadow of the future.

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He heard the voice, the voice from his own heart (...). To obey in this way, to listen not to an external command, but to the voice of one's own soul, to be ready in this way, this is good, this is the necessary thing, nothing else is necessary.

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I have no business passing judgment on other people's lives! I have to decide and choose only from my side, only from my own path.

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The truth must be lived, not taught.

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Only the weak are sent on safe journeys.

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The more sharply and mercilessly we formulate a thesis, the more irresistibly it challenges the antithesis.

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Everything that can be shaped into thoughts and expressed in words is polarized, and all polarized half-truths lack completeness, roundness, and unity.

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I walk tiredly, my shadow is dark, and behind me stands the Youth, standing hesitantly, bowing his beautiful head, and he will not come with me any more.

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There is no point in human thought, speech and writing, on thoughts raised by melatony, millions of newspapers, magazines, speeches, public and closed meetings rain down on this handful of thinkers every day, and this all works against him, and unfortunately not without results.

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However, a person is not just himself, but a unique, very special, important and remarkable point in every case, where the phenomena of the world intersect - just once and never again as it was then. That is why the history of every person is important, eternal and divine, and therefore every person is wonderful and worthy of every moment as long as they live.

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You know I don't love you alone. (...) But I will not regret a single love, a single wise or foolish step that I have taken. Maybe I love you because you look like me. But I love others because they are different from me.

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The spoken thought is always dead.

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Their feelings, the weight and consequences of their actions are clearly seen only by people with a good, determined life, who believe in life and do not take a single step that they would regret tomorrow or the day after.

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You are on the right track if you confess your heart's feelings to me and to yourself. But don't call any feeling insignificant or unworthy! I think all our feelings are good, very good, hatred, envy, jealousy, and even cruelty. We others could feed us, like our poor, beautiful and dazzling feelings, with which we are unjust without exception, the stars that we put out.

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There are countless colors in nature, and we decided to reduce the range to twenty. This is painting.

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Why is there time? Why is it always just this idiot one after the other, and why is there no bubbly, filling simultaneity? (...) A person can enjoy and create throughout this fleeting life, but he always sings song after song, and the whole, complete symphony never sounds together with all its voices and instruments.

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It's funny and sad how hard it is to learn patience and wisdom.

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The real challenge for man is to find the way to himself.

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Indeed, we have one bosom and one body, but not two or five, but countless souls dwell in it. Man is a hundred-layered onion, a fabric woven from thousands of threads.

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For destruction and rebirth to exist, there would have to be a below and an above. Below and above, on the other hand, are only the product of the human brain and exist only in the land of illusion. All contrasts, black and white, good and bad, are mere illusions.

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I don't need a weapon against death because there is no death. There is only one thing: the fear of death, it can be cured, but there is no weapon against it.

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The things we see (...) are the same as those hidden within us. Most people do not live a real life because they consider the images of the external world to be real, and they do not allow their own inner world to speak at all. That's how you can be happy. But once we are convinced that it can be otherwise, we cannot choose the path of the majority.

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Some people believe that holding on to something makes us strong. But sometimes it is if we let it go.

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There are many good people who have inherited just enough evil from their parents or ancestors and still remain good. This can no longer be examined by science. For me, good upbringing and a strong will are more certain than heredity. We know or can learn what is good and right, and we must stick to it. But no one knows exactly what our ancestors' secrets are inside of us. Better not to count on it.

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Desperate clinging to life is the surest way to death, and immortality can only be achieved by those who can die, shed their dust pods, and surrender to eternal change.

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Live in this world as if you don't live in it, respect the law and stand above it, be rich, but be believed to be a beggar, and if necessary, throw away everything with a light heart - only humor can satisfy these popular and countlessly expressed expectations of noble life wisdom.

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The one who loves always wins, not the one who knows more.

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Thinking (...) is a comforting thing that is good for a person and helps him live. But not all thinking! Oh no, there is thinking that is torment and madness. There is a way of thinking that digs painfully into the unchangeable, and nothing else comes out of it than disgust, fear and boredom.

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It's been a long time since his life fell apart into tiny, crappy pieces when he looked back at it. She looked back now on a long, long journey, her whole marriage, and it appeared to her like a long, bleak, bored country road, where a man drags himself alone through the dust, laden with heavy burdens.

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Have you ever poked a wall clock with a knitting needle? I did, and all of a sudden all hell broke loose, time ticked away, the hands raced on the dial, with hideous noise, at a crazy pace, chasing around and around pertissimo until the clock breathed its last. Recently, it's the same with us: the sun and the moon are chasing each other in the sky, as if they were running amok, the days are chasing each other, and time is running away as if it were spinning out of a sack with holes.

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Who are the people? The speaker or those listening to him, those who agree with him, or those who spit on him and threaten him with sticks?