Hermann Hesse Quotes About Demian
-
At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.
→ -
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.
→ -
There is no reality except the one contained within us.
→ -
I am fond of music I think because it is so amoral. Everything else is moral and I am after something that isn't. I have always found moralizing intolerable.
→ -
I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.
→ -
Each man had only one genuine vocation to find the way to himself.
→ -
What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
→ -
Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.
→ -
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.
→ -
Every man's story is important, eternal and sacred. That is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous and worthy of every consideration.
→ -
Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak... surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it's permitted, or would please your teachers or father or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that.
→ -
I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.
→ -
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.
→ -
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. It was a scandal that a breed of fearless and sinister people ran around freely, so they attached a nickname and a myth to these people to get even with them, to make up for the many times they had felt afraid.
→ -
You are only afriad if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!
→ -
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.
→ -
I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.
→ -
Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world some day remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day.
→ -
You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.
→ -
Love must not entreat,' she added, 'or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.
→ -
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.
→ -
For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.
→ -
I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?
→ -
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. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.
→ -
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
→ -
You must find your dream...but no dream lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular dream.
→
Related Authors
-
Knut Hamsun Author -
James Joyce Novelist -
Heinrich Heine Poet -
Rainer Maria Rilke Poet -
Friedrich Nietzsche Philologist -
Franz Kafka Writer -
Jean-Paul Sartre Philosopher -
George Orwell Novelist -
Thomas Mann Novelist -
Gautama Buddha Founding Figure -
Ernest Hemingway Author -
Heinrich Böll Writer -
Carl Jung Psychiatrist -
Bertolt Brecht Poet -
Jorge Luis Borges Writer -
Friedrich Schiller Poet -
Fyodor Dostoevsky Novelist -
Gunter Grass Novelist -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Writer