All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
Hermann Hesse

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.
Hermann Hesse

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
Hermann Hesse

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.
Hermann Hesse

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

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.
Hermann Hesse

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

If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do.
Hermann Hesse

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.
Hermann Hesse

In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.
Hermann Hesse


It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.
Hermann Hesse

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.
Hermann Hesse

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.
Hermann Hesse

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.
Hermann Hesse

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
Hermann Hesse

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.
Hermann Hesse

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.
Hermann Hesse

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
Hermann Hesse

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.
Hermann Hesse

Solitude is independence.
Hermann Hesse