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. . . gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.

Hermann Hesse

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Hermann Hesse
Age: 85 †
Born: 1877
Born: July 2
Died: 1962
Died: August 9
Illustrator
Literary
Novelist
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Writer
Hermann Karl Hesse
Water
Force
Love
Siddhartha
Severity
Gentleness
Rock
Stronger
Rocks

More quotes by Hermann Hesse

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Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists of putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a moment, just long enough for a joke
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Your soul is the whole world.
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Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.
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There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge - that is everywhere.
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Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.
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I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.
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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.
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I have always been a great dreamer in dreams I am more active than in my real life, and these shadows sapped me of health and energy.
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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.
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A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to committ outrages.
Hermann Hesse
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Happiness is love, nothing else.
Hermann Hesse
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We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering and shame.In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness,all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing.
Hermann Hesse
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Romantic souvenirs had a way of attaching themselves to one when one wanted to move on, but they were not to be taken seriously.
Hermann Hesse
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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
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There are always a few such people who demand the utmost of life and yet cannot come to terms with its stupidity and crudeness.
Hermann Hesse
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His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands.
Hermann Hesse
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He had loved and he had found himself. Most people love to lose themselves.
Hermann Hesse
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I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.
Hermann Hesse
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There is truth, my boy. But 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. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
Hermann Hesse
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Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
Hermann Hesse