Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and essayist that was revered by the literary world. He was celebrated with international acclaim for his unique perspective on poetry. He managed to win the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature during WWII and the reign of Hitler. At such a turbulent period in European history, his works gained a dedicated following. It was the younger generation who were drawn to his writings as he looked at the themes of identity and explored the human condition.
Hermann Hesse was born in Calw in Württemberg, German Empire in July of 1877. Due to his father’s heritage, Hesse was a citizen of both the German and Russian Empires. His parents had five other children but only three of them lived past infancy.
Hesse had shown depressive tendencies from a young age, and in May of 1892, he attempted suicide. He was then placed in an institution in Bad Boll. Later, he was moved to a mental institution and then again to a boy’s institution in Basel.
Herman Hesse’s writings are influenced by Francis of Assisi, Buddha, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky. A recurring theme is the individual’s search for authenticity, spirituality and balance. Der Steppenwolf (1927) (Steppenwolf) deals with humankind’s ambivalence between instinct and spirit, freedom and piety. Das Glasperlenspiel (1943) (The Glass Bead Game, also published under the name Magister Ludi), a novel of ideas, depicts a mysterious intellectual order whose final test of knowledge and sense of beauty is a mysterious game with glass beads. The search for enlightenment is also a clear theme in the novel Siddhartha.
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” – Hermann Hesse
“Every experience has its element of magic.” – Hermann Hesse
“Learn what is to be taken seriously, and laugh at the rest.” – Hermann Hesse
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“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” – Hermann Hesse
“No permanence is ours, we are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds.” – Hermann Hesse
“You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing.” – Hermann Hesse
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“As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.” – Hermann Hesse
“Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness.” – Hermann Hesse
“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” – Hermann Hesse
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“I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?” – Hermann Hesse
“You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a 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 else.” – Hermann Hesse
“You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!” – Hermann Hesse
“The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself.” – Hermann Hesse
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“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.” – Hermann Hesse
“Happiness IS love, nothing else. A human who is capable of love is happy.” – Hermann Hesse
“… gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.” – Hermann Hesse
“When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults.” – Hermann Hesse
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“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” – Hermann Hesse
“He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new.” – Hermann Hesse
“This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today… But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.” – Hermann Hesse
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“During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect.” – Hermann Hesse
“A tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me!… Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” – Hermann Hesse
“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self… Then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” – Hermann Hesse
“Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” – Hermann Hesse
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