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
dance taken steps
So you can't dance? Not at all? Not even one step? How can you say that you've taken any trouble to live when you won't even dance?
taken moving way
Romantic souvenirs had a way of attaching themselves to one when one wanted to move on, but they were not to be taken seriously.
taken laughing steppenwolf
Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.
taken circles full-circle
His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, following as ever no straight unbroken line, for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry and not to Nature and Life.
taken men years
You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
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.
cannot filled knowledge man sustained teach utter wisdom
Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.