Hermann Hesse.

I Wanted Only to Live in Accord with the Promptings Which Came from My True Self. Why Was That so Very Difficult?

You Must Find Your Dream, Then the Way Becomes Easy. but There Is No Dream That Lasts Forever, Each Dream Is Followed by Another, and One Should Not Cling to Any Particular One.

Passion Is Always a Mystery and Unaccountable, and Unfortunately There Is No Doubt That Life Does Not Spare Its Purest Children and Often It Is Just the Most Deserving People Who Cannot Help Loving Those That Destroy Them.

Perhaps It Is the Feeling of Liberation, the Enchanting Lightness and the Suspended Bliss That Make the Rest of Life Seem so Difficult, Demanding and Oppressive. I Do Not Know. I Have Not Travelled Very Far in Thought and Philosophy. However I Do Know That If There Is a State of Bliss and a Paradise, It Must Be an Uninterrupted Sequence of Such Moments, and If This State of Bliss Can Be Attained Through Suffering and Dwelling in Pain, Then No Sorrow or Pain Can Be so Great That One Should Attempt to Escape from It.

If What Matters in a Person’s Existence Is to Accept the Inevitable Consciously, to Taste the Good and Bad to the Full and to Make for Oneself a More Individual, Unaccidental and Inward Destiny Alongside One’s External Fate, Then My Life Has Been Neither Empty nor Worthless. Even If, as Decreed by the Gods, Fate Has Inexorably Trod Over My External Existence as It Does with Everyone, My Inner Life Has Been of My Own Making . I Deserve Its Sweetness and Bitterness and Accept Full Responsibility for It.

No Man Has Ever Been Entirely and Completely Himself. yet Each One Strives to Become That One in an Awkward, the Other in a More Intelligent Way, Each as Best He Can.

People with Courage and Character Always Seem Sinister to the Rest.

If We Were Not Something More Than Unique Human Beings, If Each One of Us Could Really Be Done Away with Once and for All by a Single Bullet, Story Telling Would Lose All Purpose. but 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. That Is Why Every Man’s Story Is Important, Eternal, Sacred; That Is Why Every Man, as Long as He Lives and Fulfills the Will of Nature, Is Wondrous, and Worthy of Every Consideration. in Each Individual the Spirit Has Become Flesh, in Each Man the Creation Suffers, Within Each One a Redeemer Is Nailed to the Cross.

The Bird Fights Its Way Out of the Egg. the Egg Is the World. Who Would Be Born Must First Destroy a World.

Only the Ideas That We Actually Live Are of Any Value.

Whether You and I and a Few Others Will Renew the World Someday Remains to Be Seen. but Within Ourselves We Must Renew It Each Day, Otherwise We Just Aren’t Serious. Don’t Forget That!

I Know That You Must Have Dreams That You Don’t Tell Me. I Don’t Want to Know Them. but I Can Tell You: Live Those Dreams, Play with Them, Build Altars to Them. It Is Not yet the Ideal but It Points in the Right Direction.

Each of Us Has to Find Out for Himself What Is Permitted and What Is Forbidden Forbidden for Him.

I Live in My Dreams. Other People Live in Dreams, but Not in Their Own. That’s the Difference

It’s Possible for One Never to Transgress a Single Law and Still Be a Bastard. and Vice Versa.

Love Is the Most Important Thing in the World. It May Be Important to Great Thinkers to Examine the World, to Explain and Despise It. but I Think It Is Only Important to Love the World, Not to Despise It, Not for Us to Hate Each Other, but to Be Able to Regard the World and Ourselves and All Beings with Love, Admiration and Respect.

Everything That Is Thought and Expressed in Words Is One Sided, Only Half the Truth; It All Lacks Totality, Completeness, Unity. When the Illustrious Buddha Taught About the World, He Had to Divide It into Samsara and Nirvana, Illusion and Truth, into Suffering and Salvation. One Cannot Do Otherwise, There Is No Other Method for Those Who Teach. but the World Itself, Being in and Around Us, Is Never One Sided. Never Is a Man or a Deed Wholly Samsara or Wholly Nirvana; Never Is a Man Wholly a Saint or a Sinner.

Love of One’s Neighbor Is Not Possible Without Love of One’s Self, and Self Hate Is Really the Same Thing as Sheer Egoism and in the Long Run Breeds the Same Cruel Isolation and Despair.

Perhaps You Seek Too Much, That as a Result of Your Seeking You Cannot Find. … When Someone Is Seeking, It Happens Quite Easily That He Only Sees the Thing That He Is Seeking; That He Is Unable to Find Anything, Unable to Absorb Anything, Because He Is Only Thinking of the Thing He Is Seeking, Because He Has a Goal, Because He Is Obsessed with His Goal. Seeking Means: to Have a Goal; but Finding Means: to Be Free, to Be Receptive, to Have No Goal.

Words Do Not Express Thoughts Very Well. They Always Become a Little Different Immediately After They Are Expressed, a Little Distorted, a Little Foolish. and yet It Also Pleases Me and Seems Right That What Is of Value and Wisdom to One Man Seems Nonsense to Another.

We Fear Death, We Shudder at Life’s Instability, We Grieve to See the Flowers Wilt Again and Again, and the Leaves Fall, and in Our Hearts We Know That We, Too, Are Transitory and Will Soon Disappear. When Artists Create Pictures and Thinkers Search for Laws and Formulate Thoughts, It Is in Order to Salvage Something from the Great Dance of Death, to Make Something That Lasts Longer Than We Do.

My Wish for You Two Young Scholars Is That You May Never Lack a Superior Whose Wits Are Duller Than Your Own. No Salve for Pride Is Better Than That.

It Is Not Our Purpose to Become Each Other; It Is to Recognize Each Other, to Learn to See the Other and Honor Him for What He Is: Each the Other’s Opposite and Complement.

Man Is an Onion Made up of a Hundred Integuments, a Texture Made up of Many Threads.

Life Is Always Frightful. We Cannot Help It and We Are Responsible All the Same. One’s Born at Once One Is Guilty.

All Existence Seemed to Be Based on Duality, on Contrast. Either One Was a Man or One Was a Woman, Either a Wanderer or Sedentary Burgher, Either a Thinking Person or a Feeling Person No One Could Breathe in at the Same Time as He Breathed Out, Be a Man as Well as a Woman, Experience Freedom as Well as Order, Combine Instinct and Mind. One Always Had to Pay for One with the Loss of the Other, and One Thing Was Always Just as Important and Desirable as the Other.

Without a Mother, One Cannot Love. Without a Mother, One Cannot Die.

The Paradox Alone Must Always Be Accepted That the Seemingly Impossible Must Continually Be Attempted.

How Mysterious This Life Was, How Deep and Muddy Its Waters Ran, yet How Clear and Noble What Emerged from Them.

It Is the Law of Service: He Who Wishes to Live Long Must Serve, but He Who Wishes to Rule Does Not Live Long…

Children Live on One Side of Despair, the Awakened on the Other Side.

The Doctrine You Desire, Absolute, Perfect Dogma That Alone Provides Wisdom, Does Not Exist. nor Should You Long for a Perfect Doctrine, My Friend. Rather, You Should Long for the Perfection of Yourself.