Demian

by Hermann Hesse

All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?

But my story is more important to me than any author’s is to him,

so every person, to the extent that he lives and fulfills nature’s will, is wondrous and deserving of full attention.

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.

People with courage and character always seem weird to other people. It was very uncomfortable to have a race

If a person is afraid of someone, it’s because he has allowed that someone to acquire power over him. For

nothing in the world is more repugnant to a man than following the path that leads him to himself!

It’s possible for someone never to do any forbidden thing, and yet be a thorough scoundrel.

It just leads you away from yourself. To depart from yourself is a sin. A person must be able to crawl away into himself completely, like a turtle.”

that inside us there’s a self that knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves

Whoever wishes to be born must destroy a world.