Hermann Hesse

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

I called the world of phenomena an illusion, I called my eyes and my tongue and accident, valueless phenomena. No, that is all over; I have awakened, I have really awakened and have just been born today.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom.

There is no reality except the one contained within us.

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.

Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.

Every man is more than just himself he also represents the unique the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect only once in this way and never again.

The middle class prefers comfort to pleasure convenience to liberty and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

If you hate a person you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.

If you hate a person you hate something in him that is part of yourself.

I believe that the struggle against death the unconditional and self-willed determination to live is the mode of power behind the lives and activities of all outstanding men.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, who ever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my own smallest special detail. A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my father, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy - a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty of it, or a battleground, or a prison, but that does not make it any prettier...

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, impresihable light, inviolable peace.