Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Karl Hessewas a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth2 July 1877
CityCalw, Germany
CountryGermany
siddhartha secret want
I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.
life order secret
I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.
people secret-love siddhartha
Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.
passion self secret
When all the Self was conquered and dead, when all passions and desires were silent, then the last must awaken, the innermost of Being that is no longer Self - the great secret!
pain feelings secret
If a bell failed to ring, if a stove smoked, if a wheel on a machine stuck, you knew at once where to look and did so with alacrity; you found the defect and knew how to cure it. But the thing within you, the secret mainspring that alone gave meaning to life, the thing within us that alone is living, alone is capable of feeling pleasure and pain, of craving happiness and experiencing it- that was unknown. You knew nothing about that, nothing at all, and if the mainspring failed there was no cure. Wasn't it insane?
water soul secret
But of all the water's secrets, he saw today only a single one-one that struck his soul. He saw that this water flowed and flowed, it was constantly flowing, and yet it was always there; it was always eternally the same and yet new at every moment! Oh, to be able to grasp this, to understand this!
finding indeed means perhaps seeking striving towards worthy
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.
clear poet year
From my thirteenth year on, it was clear to me that I wanted to be a poet or nothing at all.
attracted begins ceases love merely nor power
Love must not entreat, nor demand. Love must have the power to find its own way to certainty. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract. Your love, Sinclair, is attracted by me. When it begins to attract me, I will come. I will not
capture dream finds followed happy
One can be happy when he finds his dream, but every dream has to be followed by a new one and you can't capture any of them forever.
books later men sooner whenever
Whenever books are burned, sooner or later men also are burned.
It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.
above carefully comfort cursed detested fat hated middle optimism preserved prosperous
What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
considered paradise recognized seldom until
Paradise is seldom recognized as such until it is considered from the outside.