Quote

He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner... which he loved but also despised.... He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to be entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured.

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
Little
Mankind
Pleasures
Going
Becoming
Gray
Things
Loved
Manner
Honoured
Life
Pleasure
Entirely
Toiling
Suffering
Price
Childlike
Money
Seemed
Despised
Also
Sake
Unworthy
Littles
Saws
Slightly

More quotes by Hermann Hesse

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Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.
Hermann Hesse
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Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.
Hermann Hesse
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Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.
Hermann Hesse
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I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.
Hermann Hesse
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All the books of the world full of thoughts and poems are nothing in comparison to a minute of sobbing, when feeling surges in waves, the soul feels itself profoundly and finds itself. Tears are the melting ice of snow. All angels are close to the crying person.
Hermann Hesse
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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.
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
Hermann Hesse
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You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.
Hermann Hesse
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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
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The opposite of every truth is just as true.
Hermann Hesse
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Happiness is love, nothing else.
Hermann Hesse
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Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come.
Hermann Hesse
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The river has taught me to listen you will learn from it, too. The river knows everything one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths.
Hermann Hesse
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And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world.
Hermann Hesse
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A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.
Hermann Hesse
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One of the disadwantages of school and learning, he thought dreamily, was that the mind seemed to have the tendency too see and represent all things as though they were flat and had only two dimensions. This, somehow, seemed to render all matters of intellect shallow and worthless.
Hermann Hesse
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My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal.
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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The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
Hermann Hesse
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How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?
Hermann Hesse