Herman Hesse

Stages As every flower fades and as all youth Departs, so life at every stage, So every virtue, so our grasp of truth, Blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age, Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavour, Be ready bravely and without remorse To find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force For guarding us and helping us to live. Serenely let us move to distant places And let no sentiments of home detain us But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces. If we accept a home of our own making, Familiar habit makes for indolence. We must prepare for parting and leave-taking Or else remain the slaves of permanence. Even the hour of our death may send Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces, And life may summon us to newer races. So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

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.

When dealing with the insane, it is best to pretend to be sane.

One must start with the impossible in order to reach the possible.

-Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?-The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is with you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht--I can see they have already begun."

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't a part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

One never reaches home. But wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

Any attempt to replace the conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.

The closer together people sit, the harder it is for them to get acquainted.

We can understand one another, but we can interpret only ourselves.

All appeals to heroism are repression.

Loneliness is the way by which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself.

It is easier to die for a cause than to live for it.

The truth is lived, not taught.

Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent, not an object. Happiness can be possessed only so long as it is unseen.

All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on an organ. And this organ has attained an almost unimaginable perfection; its manuals and pedals range over the entire intellectual cosmos; its stops are almost beyond number. Theoretically this instrument is capable of reproducing in the Game the entire intellectual content of the universe. I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbol led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with truly a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang holiness is forever being created.