People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. Hermann Hesse More Quotes by Hermann Hesse More Quotes From Hermann Hesse With a secret smile, not unlike that of a healthy child,he walked along, peacefully, quietly. He wore his gown and walked along exactly like the other monks, but his face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand, and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing, reflected a continuous quiet, an unfading light, an invulnerable peace. Hermann Hesse light peace children Knowledge can communicated but not wisdom. Hermann Hesse inspirational "You do not really love me — you love nobody. Is that not true?" "Maybe," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can — that is their secret." Hermann Hesse practice people art Faith is stronger than so-called reality. Hermann Hesse stronger reason He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner... which he loved but also despised.... He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to be entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured. Hermann Hesse sake suffering littles Yes, what we are doing is probably mad, and probably it is good and necessary all the same. It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are susceptible of rational treatment. Then there arise ideals such as those of the Americans or of the Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely. The likeness of man, once a high ideal, is in process of becoming a machine-made article. It is for madmen like us, perhaps, to ennoble it again. Hermann Hesse mad men order Did all this make sense? Hermann Hesse make-sense Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine. That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour, made him sad. Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here following the runaway son, there was now emptiness. Hermann Hesse fighting heart running Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone. Hermann Hesse sorrow ends suffering The judge who sits over the murderer and looks into his face, and at one moment recognizes all the emotions and potentialities and possibilities of the murderer in his own soul and hears the murderer's voice as his own, is at the next moment one and indivisible as the judge, and scuttles back into the shell of his cultivated self and does his duty and condemns the murderer to death. Hermann Hesse voice judging self All the women of this fevered night, all that I had danced with, all whom I had kindled or who have kindled me, all whom I had courted, all who had clung to me with longing, all whom I had followed with enraptured eyes were melted together and had become one, the one whom I held in my arms. Hermann Hesse eye together night A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone. Hermann Hesse girl sleep silly 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? Hermann Hesse pain secret feelings Everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast. Hermann Hesse goal waiting thinking So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert. Hermann Hesse finding-yourself desert lust Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come. Hermann Hesse certain able way Life is always frightful. We cannot help it and we are responsible all the same. One's born and at once one is guilty. Hermann Hesse guilty life-is helping You learned people and artists have, no doubt, all sorts of superior things in your heads; but you're human beings like the rest of us, and we, too, have our dreams and fancies. Hermann Hesse artist dream people 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. Hermann Hesse taken men years What is meditation?... It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut-milk. Hermann Hesse pain wine drinking
