But 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 every consideration.
Quotations by:
Hesse, Herman
Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they only have themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assume importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full, but also every sorrow ….
Man’s life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness.
That’s the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!
Most people are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path.
Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Steppenwolf (1927) [tr. Creighton, rev. Milleck (1963)]
(Source)
Courage has need of reason, but it is not reason’s child; it springs from deeper strata.
[Der Mut bedarf der Vernunft, aber er ist nicht ihr Kind, er kommt aus tieferen Schichten.]
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Letter to Herrn K. Sch. (9 Jan 1951)
(Source)
Extracted as an aphorism in Reflections, #129 (1974). The source letter can be foumd in Briefe, Zweite erweiterte Ausgabe [Letters, Second Expanded Edition] (1964).