Hermann Hesse Quotes

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.

For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness—should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception—that can compensate us for life’s hurt.

The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.

Ninety per cent of life is a nightmare, do you think I am going to get it rounded up to hundred per cent?

Did you know that there are no straight lines in the universe? Life doesn't travel in perfectly straight lines. It moves more like a winding river. More often than not, you can only see to the next bend, and only when you reach that next turn can you see more.

Good therapy, gently but firmly, moves people out of denial and compartmentalization. It helps clients to develop richer inner lives and greater self-knowledge. It teaches clients to live harmoniously with others and it enhances Existential consciousness, and allows people to take responsibility for their effects on the world at large. For me , happiness is about appreciating what one has. Practically speaking,this means lowering expectations about what is fair, possible and likely. It means,finding pleasure in the ordinary.

I always see what’s... wrong. Would you want that? When I see a car or a rocket or spacecraft, I only see what’s wrong. I never see what’s right. It’s not a recipe for happiness.

Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark - spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving.

You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.

I think we're in a very exciting time - visually, I think we are. I've not got a crystal ball. I'm not saying I know what the future is at all. In some ways I'm getting quite pessimistic about the future, but in other ways I think it might get better. We are moving into very big changes.

No. The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends.

There's an old line that goes like this: An optimist is usually happy. And a pessimist is usually right. Maybe so. But which would you rather be, anyway?

I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.

Be a river - not a reservoir.

I think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives, and we stop having aspirations for being in a definite state, we know life better and are able to enjoy it better.

Change or stagnate. Keep moving or die.

You cannot control all of what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward all of what happens to you...You can choose to be happy and grateful rather than disappointed and bitter, by focusing on how it could have turned out worse but didn't, rather than how it could have turned out better but didn't.

Don't stop moving - the best time of your life is just around the corner!

You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.

Remember: life is a rhythm between day and night, summer and winter. It is a continuous rhythm. Never stop anywhere! Be moving! And the bigger the swing, the deeper your experience will be.

You have to accept the way things are before you can move on.

There's a time for everyone, If they only learn, that the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn.

It's hard to tell our good luck sometimes. Hard to tell sometimes for many years to come. And most of us have wept copious tears over someone or something, when if we'd understood the situation better, we might have celebrated our good fortune insteadOne can never change the past, only the hold it has on you and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.