Hermann Hesse Quotes

I just want to be the greatest man that I can be while I'm alive, and in that, you have to find the truth. Find the hard truth about yourself.

The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.

When I wrote Living in the Light, I wanted to share about how I live my own life and to encourage people to tap into their own inner wisdom.

Make the wise man within you your living ideal.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

Life is about growth and exploration, not achieving a fixed state of balance. You have a very limited time on earth to experience all that you can. Figuring out how to squeeze the most out of your family, work, and spirituality is your life's purpose. Go do it.

If religion and life depend upon books or upon the existence of any prophet whatsoever, then perish all religion and books! Religion is in us. No books or teachers can do more than help us to find it, and even without them we can get all truth within. You have gratitude for books and teachers without bondage to them; and worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly; love him all you will, but think for yourself. No blind belief can save you, work out your own salvation. Have only one idea of God - that He is an eternal help.

People say, "John, what's your personal growth?" And ask "How do you grow?" And I tell them. I thought, "Why do I keep telling them, why don't I just write a book on what I call personal growth?" And that's what this [Today Matters] book is.

Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.

All progress and power are already in every man; perfection is man's nature, only it is barred in and prevented from taking its proper course.

Anybody who says that love is a hindrance on the path of self-realization is not a sage.

All men are sculptors, constantly chipping away the unwanted parts of their lives, trying to create their idea of their masterpiece.

I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else?

When you find that your life is out of alignment with your grandest idea of yourself, seek to change it.

Eventually we will all understand that all wisdom is within us, and as we remember, practice and access this wisdom, we will become our own best teacher.

Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.

The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

If you think you can temper yourself into manliness by sitting here over your books, it is the very silliest fancy that ever tempted a young man to his ruin. You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

... and it's always been a thing with me to feel that all men know the truth, see? ... The truth itself doesn't have a name on it. To me. Each man has to find this for himself, I think. I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be... I'm not interested in trying to say what it will be, I don't know. But I believe that good will only bring good.

Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it.

Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!

If, on the other hand, you listen to your own inner voice, to your own inner wisdom, which is far greater than anyone else's as far as you are concerned, you will not go wrong, and you will know what to do with your life. Then time is no longer relevant.