Herman Hesse

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me. We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself. Each man has only one genuine vocation — to find the way to himself. His task is to discover his own destiny — not an arbitrary one — and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself.

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I’ve got. Yours is the plentitude of life, the sap of the fruit, the garden of passion, the beautiful landscape of art.

That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony. 

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