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
cups filled
The cup was emptied and would never be filled again.
love-is evening may
Love is like death. It is fulfillment and an evening after which nothing more may follow.
two saint body
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.
expression people soul
...and gradually his face assumed the expressions which are so often found among rich people - the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.
individuality suffering flesh
In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.
teacher thinking world
You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.
teacher teaching goal
But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die.
arrows soul bows
Om is the bow, the arrow is soul,
time real evil
If time is not real, then the dividing line between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.
brain thousand
In my brain were stored a thousand pictures.
stealing streets
Love can be begged, bought, or received as a gift, one can find it in the street, but one cannot steal it.
religious sorry independence
No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.
lonely men air
For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.
fighting names eggs
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.