Jamie > Jamie's Quotes

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who have it, appear angelic”
― Mary Shelley, The Last Man

“If you need something desperately and find it, this is not an accident; your own craving and compulsion leads you to it.”
― Herman Hesse, Demian the Story of Emil Sinclairs Youth

“I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.”
― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man • The Truce

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“It is a bitter and terrible moment when we suddenly recognise that our natural tendency is bound to lead us away from the people we love.”
― Herman Hesse, Demian

“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“When we hate someone we are hating something that is within ourselves, in his image. We are never stirred up by something that does not already exist within us.”
― Herman Hesse, Demian

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Complete Poems

“Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, The Last Man

“What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?”
― Mary Shelley, The Last Man

“It is a strange fact, but incontestable, that the philanthropist, who ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable and gentle, yet disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men's minds than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means, nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the advancement of his cause.”
― Mary Shelley, The Last Man

“Nothing is so precious to a woman's heart as the glory and excellence of him she loves”
― Mary Shelley

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Love must not entreat,' she added, 'or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“One never reaches home,' she said. 'But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak... surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it's permitted, or would please your teachers or father or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian

“I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“He too, was a tempter; he, too, was a link to the second, the evil world with which I no longer wanted to have anything to do.”
― Hermann Hesse

“There were times when I actually preferred living in the forbidden realm, and frequently, returning to the realm of light—necessary and good as it may have been—seemed almost like returning to something less beautiful…”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian