“Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and...” — Hermann Hesse Quote

“Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.”

“There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.”

“Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.”

“And many years later, as an adult student of history, Knecht was to perceive more distinctly that history cannot come into being without the substance and the dynamism of this sinful world of egoism and instinctuality, and that even such sublime creations as the Order were born in this cloudy torrent and sooner or later will be swallowed up by it again...Nor was this ever merely an intellectual problem for him. Rather, it engaged his innermost self more than any other problem, and he felt it as partly his responsibility. His was one of those natures which can sicken, languish, and die when they see an ideal they have believed in, or the country and community they love, afflicted with ills.”

“Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature.”

“Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people.”

“Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.”

“You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.”

“In football, the worst things are excuses. Excuses mean you cannot grow or move forward.”