# Hermann Hesse's most beautiful quotes (with sources)

"In every beginning dwells a magic", the bird fighting its way out of the egg and the impossible you must keep attempting: the most quoted lines of Hermann Hesse, from Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Demian and his letters.

- 0 votes · 12 items
- May 23, 2026 · retrozocker_dresden
- https://even.best/en/l/4997/hermann-hesse-s-most-beautiful-quotes-with-sources

## Top 12

1. **And in every beginning dwells a magic that protects us and helps us to live.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Stages" (1941), in The Glass Bead Game.
2. **The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must destroy a world.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Demian (1919).
3. **I wanted only to try to live what sprang from within me. Why was that so very difficult?** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Demian (1919).
4. **For the possible to come about, the impossible must be attempted again and again.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letter to Wilhelm Gundert (1960).
5. **All higher humour begins with no longer taking oneself seriously.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Steppenwolf (1927).
6. **The day had gone by, as days go by; I had got through it, I had gently killed it.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Steppenwolf (1927).
7. **Love can be begged for, bought, received as a gift, found in the street, but it cannot be stolen.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Siddhartha (1922).
8. **It is foolish, this path; it goes in loops, perhaps in circles. Let it go where it will, I want to walk it.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Siddhartha (1922).
9. **Against life's infamies the best weapons are bravery, stubbornness and patience.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letter of 23 July 1950.
10. **Youth ends with selfishness; old age begins with living for others.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Gertrude (1910).
11. **God does not send us despair to kill us; he sends it to awaken new life in us.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Glass Bead Game (1943).
12. **An aphorism is something like a gem: it gains value through rarity and is a pleasure only in tiny doses.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letter of 27 February 1956.

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