Quotes by Hermann Hesse

About Hermann Hesse:

Hermann Karl Hesse was 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

Hermann Hesse

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

Hermann Hesse

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge - that is everywhere.

Hermann Hesse

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Hermann Hesse

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

Hermann Hesse

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.

Hermann Hesse

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Hermann Hesse

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

Hermann Hesse

If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do.

Hermann Hesse

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Hermann Hesse

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

Hermann Hesse

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

Hermann Hesse

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

Hermann Hesse

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

Hermann Hesse

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

Hermann Hesse

The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

Hermann Hesse

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Hermann Hesse

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

Hermann Hesse

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

Hermann Hesse

...and as far as talent is concerned, there will be such an excess that our artists will become their own audiences, and audiences made up of ordinary people will no longer exist.

Hermann Hesse

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. an...

Hermann Hesse

Author Bio

  • NameHermann Hesse
  • Descriptionnovelist and winner of Nobel Prize in Literature
  • BornJuly 2, 1877
  • DiedAugust 9, 1962
  • CountryGermany; Switzerland
  • ProfessionNovelist; Poet; Writer; Literary; Painter
  • WorksThe Glass Bead Game; Demian; Steppenwolf; Siddhartha
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; Order Of Merit For Arts And Science; ; Peace Prize Of The German Book Trade