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Hermann Hesse Quotes - Page 17

All Quotes Age Aliens Art Birth Chaos Character Childhood Children Contentment Culture Destiny Doubt Dying Earth Eternity Evil Fate Feelings Fighting Giving Grace Happiness Harmony Hate Heart Heaven Home House Hurt Independence Inspirational Journey Joy Judging Knowledge Life Literature Love Lying Madness Magic Morning Myth Pain Passion Past Peace Perfection Pleasure Rain Reality Responsibility Running School Sleep Solitude Sorrow Soul Spring Strength Struggle Suffering Teaching Time Today Travel Truth Understanding Unity Waiting Wall War Water Wisdom Writing Yoga

No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious. No time. Does it need time to be religious? Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more,

No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.

Religious, Sorry, Independence

In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other.

Blood, Chocolate, Mouths

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.196, Macmillan

How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?

Failing, Lone Wolf, Pleasure

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.30, Macmillan

It was still quiet in the house, and not a sound was heard from outside, either. Were it not for this silence, my reverie would probably have been disrupted by reminders of daily duties, of getting up and going to school.

School, Silence, House

I have no desire to walk on water," said Siddhartha. "Let the old shamans satisfy themselves with such skills".

Skills, Water, Siddhartha

If my life were not a dangerous, painful experiment, if I did not constantly skirt the abyss and feel the void under my feet, my life would have no meaning and I would not have been able to write anything.

Writing, Feet, Skirts

If a night-moth were to concentrate its will on flying to a star or some equally unattainable object, it wouldn't succeed. Only, it wouldn't even try in the first place. A moth confines its search to what has sense and value for it, what it needs, what is indispensable to its life... if I imagined that I wanted under all circumstances to get to the North Pole, then to achieve it I would have to desire it strongly enough that my whole being was ruled by it. But if I were to decide to will that the pastor should stop wearing his glasses, it would be useless. That would be making a game of it.

Stars, Night, Glasses

Once it happened, as I lay awake at night, that I suddenly spoke in verses, in verses so beautiful and strange that I did not venture to think of writing them down, and then in the morning they vanished; and yet they lay hidden within me like the hard kernel within an old brittle husk.

Beautiful, Morning, Writing

Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.30, Macmillan

Here and there in the ancient literature we encounter legends of wise and mysterious games that were conceived and played by scholars, monks, or the courtiers of cultured princes. These might take the form of chess games in which the pieces and squares had secret meanings in addition to their usual functions.

Wise, Squares, Games

Each man carries the vestiges of his birth; the slime and eggshells of his primeval past with him to the end of his days. Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below.

Past, Men, Lizards

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

For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself.

Glowing, Childhood, Sound

It was the first rent in the holy image of my father, it was the first fissure in the columns that had upheld my childhood, which every individual must destroy before he can become himself.

Father, Childhood, Firsts

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

The world, as it is now, wants to die, wants to perish — and it will.

World, Want, Wanting To Die

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

I had grown a thin mustache, I was a full-grown man, and yet I was completely helpless and without a goal in life.

Men, Goal, Mustache

"Demian". Book by Hermann Hesse (p. 169), 1919.

I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.

Second Chance, Doors, Bed

Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.

Life, Mother, Dies

"Narcissus and Goldmund". Book by Hermann Hesse, 1930.

But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking.

Spring, Thinking, Exception

The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind change. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity.

Music, Attitude, Destiny

"The Glass Bead Game". Book by Hermann Hesse, 1943.

I shall begin my story with an experience I had when I was ten and attended our small town's Latin school.

Latin, Book, School

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

It was all a lie, it all stank, stank of lies, it all gave the illusion of meaning and happiness and beauty, and all of it was just putrefaction that no one would admit to. Bitter was the taste of the world. Life was a torment.

Lying, World, Taste

In any case, the most lively young people become the best old people, not those who pretend to be as wise as grandfathers while they are still at school.

Wise, School, People

Hermann Hesse (1969). “Gertrude”

You wouldn't consider all the bipeds you pass on the street human beings simply because they walk upright and carry their young in their bellies nine months! It is obvious how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or angels, how many are ants, how many are bees!

Angel, Sheep, Nine

"Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse".

Yes, I am going into the woods; I am going into the unity of all things.

Unity, Woods, All Things

Hermann Hesse (2015). “Siddhartha: An Indian Tale”, p.103, Om Books International

I called the world of phenomena an illusion, I called my eyes and my tongue an accident, valueless phenomena. No, that is all over; I have awakened, I have really awakened and I have just been born today.

Eye, World, Today

"Siddhartha".

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.

Mean, Goal, Siddhartha

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

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