Hermann Hesse, Demian. Die Geschichte Von Emil Sinclairs Jugend Quotes

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

I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.

For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.

An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.

You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.

Gratitude is not a virtue I believe in, and to me it seems hypocritical to expect it from a child.

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.

Love must not entreat, ' she added, 'or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.

Fate and character are different names for the same idea.

For awakened human beings, there was no obligation—none, none, none at all—except this: to search for yourself, become sure of yourself, feel your way forward along your own path, wherever it led.

One never reaches home, ' she said. 'But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.