Hermann Hesse Quotes

Even as a child, even as my blood-past was drained from me, I understood that if I were strong enough to accept it, I was being offered a second history.

The grief and tears didn't wash me away. They gave me my life back! They cleansed me, baptized me, hydrated the earth at my feet.

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

How do you plan a rebirth? I'm not sure you do. You just stand in the darkness until you can't endure it any long, and then you move forward until you're standing in the light.

It is important for people to know that no matter what lies in their past, they can overcome the dark side and press on the a brighter world.

What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.

I tell of hearts and souls and dances... Butterflies and second chances; Desperate ones and dreamers bound, Seeking life from barren ground, Who suffer on in earthly fate The bitter pain of agony hate, Might but they stop and here forgive Would break the bonds to breathe and live And find that God in goodness brings A chance for change, the hope of wings To rest in Him, and self to die And so become a butterfly.

When you're down, when you've been kicked down in the street and then kicked a few more times until you're bleeding and your teeth are out, then you only have up to go. You get reborn again, and expectations aren't so great because they've taken you away. It's beautiful to be down there. It's so beautiful!

When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness.

We are not the worst moments of our lives. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.

My dream had been shattered, but then re-created, fashioned into something with more meaning and becoming more precious.

If we openly declare what is wrong with us, what is our deepest need, then perhaps the death and despair will by degrees disappear.

It's taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now.

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.

I learned that my sadness never destroyed what was great about me. You just have to go back to that greatness, find that one little light that's left. I'm lucky I found one little glimmer stored away.

Change doesn't have to be hard, and healing doesn't have to hurt. Surely by now you know that every thing happens for a reason! There is something better awaiting you on the other side of this.

And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come and the motherly earth will gather me back home. It won't be the end of things, only a way of being born again, a bathing and a slumbering where the old and the withered sink down, where the young and new begin to breathe. Then, with other thoughts, I will walk along streets like these, and listen to streams, and overhear what the sky says in the evening, over and over and over.

You think you're being broken but you're really being broken open...and that's where the healing happens, in those broken places...if you'll allow it.

Grace flows most refreshingly through the faucet of brokenness.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain, Ye shall be loved again.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

Despair is good. Despair can be the nadir of one life and the starting point of an ascent into another, better one.

you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?