“I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”

About Hermann Hesse

1877 – 1962

German-Swiss novelist and poet, Nobel laureate in Literature (1946), author of "Siddhartha" and "Steppenwolf".

“Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

“I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge.”

“I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths where your life wells forth.”

“I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people.”