Hermann Hesse quotes

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss writer and poet, renowned for novels such as "Steppenwolf," "Siddhartha," and "The Glass Bead Game." His works explore themes of individuality, spirituality, and the search for self-understanding. He became one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century. Here are 319 of his quotes:

There is no reality except the one contained within us. (Hermann Hesse)
What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. View quote
Hermann Hesse
The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion. View quote
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. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. View quote
Hermann Hesse
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. View quote
Hermann Hesse
The truth is lived, not taught. View quote
Hermann Hesse
As a body everyone is single, as a soul never. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Each man had only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself. (Hermann Hesse)
If I know what love is, it is because of you. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Only the ideas that we really live have any value. View quote
Hermann Hesse
In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Happiness is love, nothing else. A man who is capable of love is happy. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life. View quote
Hermann Hesse
What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object. View quote
Hermann Hesse
I sped through heaven and saw god at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defences and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart. View quote
Hermann Hesse
Haller's sickness of soul, as I now know, is not the eccentricity of a single individual, but the sickness of the times themselves, the neurosis of that generation to which Haller belongs, a sickness, it seems, that by no means attacks the weak and worthless only but rather those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts. View quote
Hermann Hesse
That's the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die! (Hermann Hesse)
I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself. View quote
Hermann Hesse
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. View quote
Hermann Hesse
The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing. View quote
Hermann Hesse
When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane. View quote
Hermann Hesse