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
above carefully comfort cursed detested fat hated middle optimism preserved prosperous
What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
capture dream finds followed happy
One can be happy when he finds his dream, but every dream has to be followed by a new one and you can't capture any of them forever.
deathly empty hateful hell ideal loneliness mask occasion torn waste
And every occasion when a mask was torn off, an ideal broken, was preceded by this hateful vacancy and stillness, this deathly constriction and loneliness and unrelatedness, this waste and empty hell of lovelenessness and despair, such as I had now t
aversion deep flee love quite resist single within
You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, single power, a single salvation... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing el
insanity insane method
When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
harmony ifs demian
You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself.
lightning strikes steppenwolf
A mere nothing suffices — and the lightning strikes.
university-professors two republic
... let us recall the well-known statement of a university professor in the Republic of the Massagetes: 'Not the faculty but His Excellency the General can properly determine the sum of two and two.'
trials mindfulness accommodate
But peace, too, is a living thing and like all life it must wax and wane, accommodate, withstand trials, and undergo changes.
contentment steppenwolf
What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life
agreement benefits holiness
Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me.
myth
In the beginning was the myth.
make-sense
Did all this make sense?
conceited thinking agony
The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies.