Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse

Novelist, Poet

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet and novelist known for exploring themes of self-discovery and spirituality in works like 'Siddhartha'.

Men Siddhartha Children World People Life
Born
July 2, 1877
Died
August 9, 1962
Quotes
446
Rank
#70

Quote collection

Hermann Hesse quotes (page 12 of 23)

446 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Hermann Hesse Novelist, Poet
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"A game master or teacher who was primarily concerned with being close enough to the "innermost meaning" would be a very bad teacher. To be candid, I myself, for example, have never in my life said a word to my pupils about the "meaning" of music; if there is one it does not need my explanations. On the other hand I have always made a great point of having my pupils count their eighths and sixteenths nicely. Whatever you become, teacher, scholar, or musician, have respect for the "meaning" but do not imagine that it can be taught."

Teacher Games Hands
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"In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified."

Individuality Suffering Flesh
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"A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live."

Children Father Spring
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"The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing."

Dancing Substance World
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"Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic, and each symbol is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the inner part of the world, where you and I and day and night are all one."

Night Soul One Day
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"No permanence is ours, we are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds."

Flow Fit Wave
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"It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion."

Passion Heart Waiting
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"Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them."

Beautiful Clever Mean
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"The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people — eternal life."

Perfect Grace World
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"Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap"

Real Character Two
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"My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal."

Goal Quality Able
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"I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self."

Men Self Siddhartha
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"Only within yourself exists the other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself. I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul."

Change Reality Long
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"His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands."

Two Doe Saint
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"One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error."

Errors Self Siddhartha
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"The art of love-giving and taking become one."

Love Art Giving
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"Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself."

Men Path
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