Hermann Hesse

The best weapons against the infamies of life are courage, wilfulness and patience. Courage strenthens, wilfulness is fun and patience provides tranquility.

Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.

He reflected deeply, until this feeling completely overwhelmed him and he reached a point where he recognized causes; for to recognize causes, it seemed to him, is to think, and through thought along feelings become knowledge and are not lost, but become real and being to mature.

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

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

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.

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.

The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.

Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.

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.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.