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Hermann Hesse Quotes - Page 16

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When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving

When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. - Harry Haller

Pain, Air, Breathing

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another's words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes.

Eye, Men, Giving

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.

Teacher, Thinking, Half

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

...Haller's sickness of the 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, precisely those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts.

Mean, Soul, Generations

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.21, Macmillan

A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.

Broken, Childhood, Tree

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Beneath the Wheel: A Novel”, p.132, Macmillan

The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.

War, Mind, Annihilation

Hermann Hesse (2007). “Siddhartha”, Fine Communications

For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

Lonely, Men, Air

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!

Dream, Lying, Night

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.36, Macmillan

"You do not really love me — you love nobody. Is that not true?" "Maybe," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can — that is their secret."

Art, Practice, People

"Siddhartha".

A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone.

Girl, Silly, Sleep

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.101, Macmillan

Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.

Pain, Laughing, Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.59, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.

Teacher, Giving, Soldier

Hermann Hesse (2015). “Siddhartha: An Indian Tale”, p.51, Om Books International

All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame.

Failure, Men, Common

Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

Travel, Journey, Years

Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.

Dark, Names, World

Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.

Hands, Games, Laughing

Steppenwolf pt. 6 (1927)

What a wonderful sleep it had been! Never had sleep so refreshed him, so renewed him, so rejuvenated him! Perhaps he had really died, perhaps he had been drowned and was reborn in another form. No, he recognized himself, he recognized his hands and feet, the place where he lay and the Self in his breast, Siddhartha, self-willed, individualistic. But this Siddhartha was somewhat changed, renewed. He had slept wonderfully. He was remarkably awake, happy and curious.

Sleep, Self, Hands

So wie die Verruecktheit in einem hoeheren Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist die Schizophrenie der Anfang aller Kunst, aller Phantasie. (As insanity in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizophrenia the beginning of all art, all fantasy.)

Art, Insanity, Fantasy

At that time two opposing concepts of the Game called forth commentary and discussion. The foremost players distinguished two principal types of Game, the formal and the psychological.

Player, Games, Two

Was that really love? I saw all these passionate people reel about and drift haphazardly as if driven by a storm, the man filled with desire today, satiated on the morrow, loving fiercely and discarding brutally, sure of no affection and happy in no love.

Men, People, Storm

Hermann Hesse (1969). “Gertrude”

The way to innocence, to the uncreated and to God leads on, not back, not back to the wolf or to the child, but ever further into sin, ever deeper into human life.

Children, Way, Innocence

Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.

Children, Believe, Men

Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me.

Agreement, Holiness, Benefits

Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.67, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.

Wisdom

"Siddhartha: An Indian Tale".

In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.

Children, Self, Expression

"Peter Camenzind". Book by Hermann Hesse, 1904.

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