Hermann Hesse Quotes

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.

It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is No. 6 and will live there happily as No. 6 for ever after. And this is the one rebel that they can't break.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

One doesn't want one's identity coerced.

It is a retrogression when human beings begin to insist on uniform, on one-mindedness, on conditioning their offspring so that all their reactions are automatic.

The free, self-determining, self-developing soul may not walk its own path, however innocently, but must fit into the scheme and pattern …

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

I hold a jail more roomy ... than would be the whole world if I were to submit to repression.

If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is the best.

Wherever there is repression of the individual, wherever there are acts contrary to the nature of the individual, there can be no greater crime.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible.

Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas.

Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.

People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.

You are born and then you die, but in between you can do anything you want. It's society that creates rules for us, but you can break out of that.

I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'

The American people have worn out their patience being told by their so-called bettors that you don't know how to live your lives the right way. We need to arrange things for you so you can do things better than you would do yourself.

I think the idea of freedom or liberty is really misused for political reasons, but it's something that resonates with people to the core. People want to be masters of their own destinies, but at the same time, I think they do so selectively. Sometimes they want to be told exactly what to do so they don't have to think for themselves - as long as they can still exercise their free will.

Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.