Hermann Hesse Quotes
Happiness is love, nothing else.
Hesse, Hermann. Reflections. Selected by Volker Michels, translated by Ralph Manheim, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974, p. 55.
The translation into the word "love" includes love of things as well as people. The Eigen translation is "All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of those relationships with people and those thiongs about which a person is passionate." The Greeks had 7 diffferent words for love od different kinds and things. But the Latin in which this was written is a much less precice lanaguage, quite like English in that respect. The object of the passion might be people, a political movement, a area of study and inquiry like science or mathamatics, the production of something as in art music or literature--even a sport. But if the quality of the object of the passion is poor, the happiness rarely lasts.
Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
