Skip to content

Hermann Hesse Quotes

1877–1962 Germany

Hermann Karl Hesse (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Germany
Essayists
Nobel laureates
Novelists
Painters

Also known as: Herman Hesse, Hesse, Hermann, Demian, Journey to the East, The Journey to the East

Random Hermann Hesse quote

112 quotes

In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.

Demian (1919)

We cannot evade life's course, but we can school ourselves to be superior to fortune and also to look unflinchingly upon the most painful things.

Gertrude (1910)

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. The God's name is Abraxas.

Demian (1919)

Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.

Demian (1919)

I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.

Demian (1919)

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

Steppenwolf (1927)

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

Steppenwolf (1927)

We aren't pigs as you seem to think, but human beings. We create gods and struggle with them, and they bless us.

Demian (1919)

I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge.

Gertrude (1910)

Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.

Steppenwolf (1927)

We ought not to consider the opinions of those sects as naïve as they appear from the rationalist point of view.

Demian (1919)

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

Demian (1919)

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

Siddhartha (1922)

One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.

Steppenwolf (1927)

Love does not entreat; or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.

Demian (1919)

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.

Demian (1919)

Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

Hermine in Steppenwolf (1927)

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, everything is Brahman.

Siddhartha (1922)

Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity.

Siddhartha (1922)

Your faith has found no more air to breathe. And suffocation is a hard death.

Steppenwolf (1927)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Hermann Hesse (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.