Quote

I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.

Hermann Hesse

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Deep
Unreasoning
Strength
Reckon
Call
Innermost
Understanding
Awake
Knowledge
Perceive
Desire
Powers
Soul
Weakness
Whole
Conscious

More quotes by Hermann Hesse

Image
What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.
Hermann Hesse
Image
The voices of all creatures are in the voices of the river.
Hermann Hesse
Image
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
Hermann Hesse
Image
You're quite right there, he said. I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.
Hermann Hesse
Image
And what is called history at school, and all we learn by heart there about heroes and geniuses and great deeds and fine emotions, is all nothing but a swindle invented by the schoolmasters for educational reasons to keep children occupied for a given number of years. It has always been so and always will be.
Hermann Hesse
Image
He had loved and he had found himself. Most people love to lose themselves.
Hermann Hesse
Image
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.
Hermann Hesse
Image
You have no doubt guessed long since that the conquest of time and the escape from reality, or however else it may be that you choose to describe your longing, means simply the wish to be relieved of your so-called personality. That is the prison where you lie.
Hermann Hesse
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.
Hermann Hesse
Image
Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.
Hermann Hesse
Image
The world, Govinda my friend, is not imperfect, not to be seen as on a slow path toward perfection: No, it is perfect in every moment, all transgression already bears grace within itself, all little children already have the aged in themselves, all the sucklings death, all the dying eternal life.
Hermann Hesse
Image
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, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.
Hermann Hesse
Image
There is a miracle in every new beginning
Hermann Hesse
Image
Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe.
Hermann Hesse
Image
If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do.
Hermann Hesse
Image
People know, or dimly feel, that if thinking is not kept pure and keen, and if respect for the world of mind is no longer operative, ships and automobiles will soon cease to run right, the engineer's slide rule and the computations of banks and stock exchanges will forfeit validity and authority, and chaos will ensue.
Hermann Hesse
Image
It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.
Hermann Hesse
Image
Good that you ask. You should always ask, always have doubts.
Hermann Hesse