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 HESSEAny attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.
More Hermann Hesse Quotes
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The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.
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Beauty does not bring happiness to the one who possesses it, but to the one who loves and admires it.
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Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet
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In every truth, the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is onesided.
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Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.
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The truth is lived, not taught.
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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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He had loved and he had found himself. Most people love to lose themselves.
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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.
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Gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.
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I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.
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A magic dwells in each beginning, protecting us, telling us how to live.
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You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live.
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The river is everywhere.
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Every experience has its element of magic.
HERMANN HESSE






