Herman Hesse > Quotes

“A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the forest and the mountains, was a heron, gobbled fish, hungered as a heron hungers, spoke heron croak, died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay on the sandy shore, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside its corpse, became a dead jackal, lay on the strand, swelled up, stank, putrefied, was dismembered by hyenas, skinned by vultures, became bones, dust, blew in open country. And Siddhartha's soul returned, died, decayed, turned to dust, tasted the muddy rush of the cycle, waiting in new thirst like a hunter for the gap where the cycle could be escaped, where the end of causes, where eternity free of suffering would begin. He mortified his senses, he slew his memory, he slid out of his I into a thousand alien shapes, became beast, carrion, stone, wood, water, and found himself every time awakening again, in the light of the sun or the moon, again he was I, whirling around in the round, he felt thirst, conquered thirst, felt thirst anew.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“What is meditation? What is leaving the body? What is fasting?... It is escape from the Self, it is the brief flight from the agony of one's self. This same escape, this same brief numbing is found by the ox driver in the inn when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he no longer feels his Self...

Surely the drinker finds numbness, surely he finds a brief escape and rest, but he returns from the delusion to find everything as it was before, has not grown wiser, has not gathered insight, has not ascended o a higher rung.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“Ich wollte ja nichts als das zu leben versuchen, was von selber aus mir heraus wollte. Warum war das so sehr schwer?”
― Herman Hesse

“Everything that can be thought with thoughts and said with words is unilateral, everything one-sided, a moiety, everything lacks wholeness, roundness, unity…. But the world itself, that which exists around us and inside us, is never unilateral.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“If a beautiful thing were to remain beautiful for all eternity, I'd be glad, but at the same time I'd look at it with a colder eye. I'd say to myself: You can look at it any time, it doesn't have to be today. But when I know something is perishable and can't last forever, I look at it with a feeling not just of joy but of compassion as well.”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“La vie est-elle une souffrance ou une joie? Peu importe; il se peut que ce ne soit point là l'essentiel...
Il n'est pas une chose au monde que je connaisse si peu que moi-même. Je suis comme toi. Toi non plus, tu n'aimes point”
― Herman Hesse

“Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“Govina knew: he [Siddhartha] would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“Heim kommt man nie. Aber wo befreundete Wege zusammenlaufen, da sieht die ganze Welt für eine Stunde wie Heimat aus.”
― Herman Hesse

“—El amor no debe pedir —dijo—, ni tampoco exigir. Ha de tener la fuerza de encontrar en sí mismo la certeza. En ese momento ya no se siente atraído, sino que atrae él mismo.
Sinclair: su amor se siente atraído por mí. El día que me atraiga a sí, acudiré. No quiero hacer regalos. Quiero ser ganada.

Demian - 1919”
― Herman Hesse

“Wenn jemand sucht, dann geschieht es leicht, daß sein Auge nur noch das Ding sieht, das er sucht, daß er nichts zu finden, nichts in sich einzulassen vermag, weil er nur immer an das Gesuchte denkt, weil er ein Ziel hat, weil er vom Ziel besessen ist. Suchen heißt: ein Ziel haben. Finden aber heißt: frei sein, offen stehen, kein Ziel haben. Du bist vielleicht in der Tat ein Sucher, denn, deinem Ziel nachstrebend, siehst du manches nicht, was nah vor deinen Augen steht.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“¨Analizar el mundo, explicarlo o despreciarlo acaso sea la tarea principal de los grandes filósofos. Yo en cambio, lo único que persigo es poder amar el mundo, no despreciarlo, no odiarlo a el ni odiarme a mi mismo, poder contemplarlo (y con él a mi mismo y a todos los seres) con amor, admiración y respeto. ¨”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“This is why I am continuing my journey - not to seek a different, a better teaching, as I know there is none, but to leave all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal alone or die.”
― Herman Hesse

“Cada pessoa tem a sua alma, que não pode ser confundida com nenhuma outra. Duas pessoas podem encontrar-se, podem conversar e ser bastante próximas, mas as suas almas são como flores, cada uma com raízes em lugares diferentes, e nenhuma delas pode ir ao encontro da outra, caso contrário teria de abandonar as suas raízes e isso é algo que não conseguem fazer”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“Govina knew: [Siddhartha] would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“Behind them blew hotly the scent of quiet passion, of devastating service, of ruthless elimination of self.”
― Herman Hesse

“The Teaching that you heard from me, however, is not my opinion, its aim is not to explain the world to the inquisitive. It has a different aim; its aim is deliverance from suffering.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha: by Herman Hesse

“Every human being has his soul, he can't mix it with any other. Two people can meet, they can talk with one another, they can be close together. But their souls are like flowers, each rooted to its place. One can’t go to another, because it would have to break away from its roots, and that it can’t do.”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“Nur das Denken, das wir leben, hat einen Wert.”
― Herman Hesse, The Greatest Classics Ever Written: Exploring Timeless Masterpieces of Literature

“Pensava no seu amigo que não queria nada da vida além de ser um espectador, e Rothfuss não sabia dizer se aquilo era uma atitude ambiciosa ou modesta.”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“Ich weiß nicht, ob mein Leben nutzlos und bloß ein Mißverständnis war oder ob es einen Sinn hat.”
― Herman Hesse, Magister Ludi

“My little gifts gave them pleasure and sometimes they were thankful to me. Why ask for more? Can't we content ourselves with that?”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“The bandaging hurt. Everything that has happened to me since has hurt. But sometimes, when I find the key and climb fully down into myself, where the images of destiny slumber in their dark mirror, I need only bend down over the black mirror and see my own image, which now looks exactly like Him, Him, my friends and my guide.”
― Herman Hesse

“I was resigned to the knowledge that i had lost all appreciation of the outside world, that the loss of it's bright colors was an inseparable loss of my childhood, and that, in a certain sense, one had to pay for freedom and maturity of the soul with the renunciation of this cherished aura. But now, overjoyed, I saw that all of this had only been buried or clouded over and that it was still possible- even if you had become liberated and renounced your childhood happiness- to see the world shine and to savor the delicious thrill of the child's vision.”
― Herman Hesse

“That life is worth living is the essential message of all art.”
― Herman Hesse

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.”
― Herman Hesse

“When someone is searching, then it might easily happen that the only thing that his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddharta

“One more thing! Eve said if you're ever in trouble, I should give you the kiss from her she sent with me. Close your eyes, Sinclair!

I obediently closed my eyes and felt a light kiss on my lips, where I still had a little blood that refused to ever go away. Then I fell asleep.”
― Herman Hesse

“Tudo é belo, desde que o vejamos na altura certa.”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“Everybody's got to figure out for himself what's true and what life is like; those are things that you can't learn from any book.”
― Herman Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp