Best 22 quotes of Herman Hesse on MyQuotes

And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds. Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering. At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul.

Aquel que sólo quiere su destino no tiene ya modelos ni ideales, amores ni consuelos. Tal es el camino que realmente debería uno seguir.

Aun cuando mi destino externo se haya desenvuelto como sucede para todos, inevitablemente y según lo decretado por los dioses, mi vida íntima es obra propiamente mía, con sus gozos y amarguras, y soy yo, en lo personal, el responsable de la misma.

But, despite everything, it was almost a pleasure to suffer those torments. I had crawled through life blindly and dully for so long, my heart had kept silent and had sat, impoverished, in a corner for so long, that even these self accusations, this horror, this whole ghastly emotion in my soul was welcome. After all, it was an emotion, flames were still rising, it showed that my heart was still alive! In a confused way, in the midst of misery I felt something like liberation and springtime.

Čia reikia pridurti, jog klaidinga vadinti savižudžiais tik tuos žmones, kurie iš tikrųjų nusižudo. Tarp pastarųjų yra netgi daug tokių, kurie savižudžiais tampa, taip sakant, atsitiktinai, polinkio į savižudybę jie gali ir neturėti. Tarp žmonių, nepasižyminčių ryškia asmenybe, ryškiu likimu, tarp eilinių ir bandos žmonių pasitaiko tokių, kurie nusižudo, bet pagal visą savo charakterį anaiptol nepriklauso savižudžių tipui, kai tuo tarpu vėlgi daugelis, galbūt dauguma iš tų, kurie pagal savo esybę priklauso savižudžiams,— iš tikrųjų niekada nepakelia prieš save rankos. Savižudis — o Haris toks buvo — nebūtinai turi gyventi, ypač glaudžiai susijęs su mirtimi — taip galima gyventi ir nebūnant savižudžiu. Bet savižudžiui būdinga tai, kad jis savąjį „aš",— nesvarbu, teisėtai ar neteisėtai,— junta tarsi ypač pavojingą, nepatikimą ir nesaugų gamtos daigą, kad pats sau jis atrodo toks begaliniai nesaugus ir paliktas pavojui, tarsi stovėtų ant siaurutėlės uolos viršūnės, kur tereikia mažiausio išorinio stumtelėjimo arba menkiausio vidinio silpnumo, kad nukristų į tuštumą. Šio tipo žmonių likimui būdinga tai, kad savižudybė jiems yra visų tikėtiniausią mirties rūšis, bent jau jų pačių supratimu. Šią nuotaiką, kuri beveik visada pastebima dar ankstyvoje jaunystėje ir lydi šiuos žmones visą gyvenimą, sukelia ne kažkokia ypatingai silpna gyvybinė jėga, atvirkščiai, tarp „savižudžių" pasitaiko nepaprastai atkaklių, godžių ir drąsių natūrų. Bet lygiai taip pat, kaip yra žmonių, kurie, nors truputį sunegalavę, karščiuoja, taip ir šie žmonės, kuriuos vadiname „savižudžiais" ir kurie visuomet labai jausmingi ir jautrūs, nuo menkiausio sukrėtimo linkę intensyviai pasiduoti savižudybės minčiai.

Govinda said: "But what you call thing, is it something real, something intrinsic? Is it not only the illusion of Maya, only image and appearance? Your stone, your tree, are they real?" "This also does not trouble me much," said Siddhartha. "If they are illusion, then I also am illusion, and so they are always of the same nature as myself. It is that which makes them so lovable and venerable. That is why I can Love them. And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most imortant thing in the world. It may be important tp great thinkers to examine the world, to explain an despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for uus to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.

How deaf and stupid I have been, he thought, walking on quickly. When anyone reads anything which he wishes to study, he does not despise the letters and punctuation marks, and call them illusion, chance and worthless shells, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wished to read the book of the world and of my own nature, did presume to despise the letters and signs. I called the world of appearances, illusion. I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened.

However, one can study someone very closely and then one can often know almost exactly what he thinks or feels and thenone can also anticipate what he will do the next moment. It's simple enough, only people don't know it.

How I hated myself, thwarted, poisoned and tortured myself, made myself old and ugly. Never again, as I once fondly imagined, will I consider that Siddartha is clever. But one thing I have done well, which pleases me, which I must praise- I have now put an end to that self-detestation, to that foolish empty life. I commend you, Siddartha, that after so many years of folly, you have again a good idea, that you have accomplished something, that you have again heard the bird in your breast sing and followed it.

I know of a private library containing several thousand volumes, which are organized neither alphabetically nor chronologically, but where the owner has instead determined the juxtaposition of hierarchy of all the books according to pure personal preference - and yet so organically has the whole place been arranged and so sovereign an overview does he have of his entire collection that he can effortlessly pick out any particular tome that someone has asked him to lend them.

It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping! Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast—which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life—then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life... Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it. To live, without renouncing the mobility of creating. Was that impossible?

-No, la mirada del lobo estepario atravesaba penetrante todo el mundo de nuestro tiempo, toda la fiebre de actividad y afán de arrivismo, la vanidad entera y todo el juego superficial de un espiritualismo fementido y sin fondo-. ¡Ay!, y por desgracia la mirada profundizaba aún más; llegaba no sólo a los defectos y a las desesperanzas de nuestro tiempo, de nuestra espiritualidad y de nuestra cultura: llegaba hasta el corazón de toda la Humanidad, expresaba elocuentemente en un solo segundo la duda entera de un pensador, de un sabio quizás, en la dignidad y en el sentido general de la vida misma. ("El lobo estepario").

O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening.

Once he said to her: 'You are like me; you are different from other people. You are Kamala and no one else, and within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat any time and be yourself, just as I can. Few people have that capacity and yet everyone could have it.

Profondamente vi pensò, come attraverso un'acqua profonda si lasciò calare fino in fondo di questa sensazione, fin là dove riposano le cause ultime, poiché conoscere le cause ultime, questo appunto è pensare - così gli pareva - e solo per questa via le sensazioni diventano conoscenze e non vanno perdute, ma al contrario si fanno essenziali e cominciano a irradiare ciò che in esse è contenuto.

True education is not education for any purpose; like all striving for perfection, it carries its purpose within itself. Just as striving to attain physical strength, dexterity, and beauty serves no ultimate end, such as making us rich, famous, and powerful, but instead is its own reward ... so the striving after 'education', that is, after improvement of the mind, is not an arduous journey toward any definite goal, but an exhilarating and fortifying broadening of our consciousness, an enrichment of our potential for life and happiness. In this respect, true education is always both a fulfillment and a stimulus.

When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes.

Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing—mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery... It is mystery I love and pursue.

Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked to most essential thing—mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery... It is mystery I love and pursue.

Yes Siddhartha,' he said. 'Is this what you mean: that the river is in all places at once, at its source and where it flows into the sea, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the ocean, in the mountains, everywhere at once, so for the river there is only the present moment and not the shadow of the future?' 'It is,' Siddhartha said.'And once I learned this I considered my life, and it too was a river, and the boy Siddhartha was separated from the man Siddhartha and the graybeard Siddhartha only by shadows, not by real things. ... Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself.

You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like thing to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time.