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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

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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
Focus
Alone
Spurn
Choices
Siddhartha
Another
Purely
Must
Judge
Men
Humility
Life
Judging
Choose

More quotes by Hermann Hesse

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We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral we have already climbed many steps.
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Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.
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Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone.
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I suddenly saw how sad and artificial my life had been during this period, for the loves, friends, habits and pleasures of these years were discarded like badly fitting clothes. I parted from them without pain and all that remained was to wonder that I could have endured them so long.
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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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Fortunately, like most children, I had learned what is most valuable, most indispensable for life before school years began, taught by apple trees, by rain and sun, river and woods.
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The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people — eternal life.
Hermann Hesse
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When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
Hermann Hesse
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Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.
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It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.
Hermann Hesse
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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.
Hermann Hesse
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To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.
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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lucid and quiet his voice hovered above the listeners, like a light, like a starry sky.
Hermann Hesse
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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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Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.
Hermann Hesse
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Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish...It is perfectly fine with me that what for one man is precious wisdom for another sounds like foolery.
Hermann Hesse
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To achieve the possible, we must attempt the impossible again and again.
Hermann Hesse
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But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking.
Hermann Hesse
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Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!
Hermann Hesse