Quotes from Hermann Hesse

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

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.

The world, as it is now, wants to die, wants to perish — and it will.

You should never be afraid of people... such fear can destroy us completely. You've simply got to get rid of it, if you want to turn into someone decent. You understand that, don't you?

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

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

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

Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.

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

There is no reality except the one contained within us.

The mind is international and supra-national ... it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.

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.

madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom

Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Happiness is love, nothing else. A man who is capable of love is happy.

Each man's life represents a road toward himself.

A man who is ill-adjusted to the world is always on the verge of finding himself. One who is adjusted to the world never finds himself, but gets to be a cabinet minister.

But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest

Never again!" commanded his will. "Again! Tomorrow!" begged his heart.

Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom.

But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking.