Knulp Quotes

“If a beautiful thing were to remain beautiful for all eternity, I'd be glad, but all the same Id look at it with a colder eye. I'd say to myself: You can look at it any time, it doesn't have to be today.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“A father can pass on his nose and eyes and even his intelligence to his child, but not his soul. In every human being the soul is new”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“He had too much to think about. In the course of his long, useless marches he had sunk deeper and deeper into the tangle of his botched life as into a clump of brambles, and still he had found no meaning or consolation.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“He had thrown himself away, he had lost interest in everything, and life, falling in with his feelings, had demanded nothing of him. He had lived as an outsider, an idler and onlooker, well liked in his young manhood, alone in his illness and advancing years. Seized with weariness, he sat down on the wall, and the river murmured darkly in his thoughts.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“no matter how close two human beings may be, there is always a gulf between them which only love can bridge, and that only from hour to hour.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“If a beautiful thing were to remain beautiful for all eternity, I’d be glad, but all the same I’d look at it with a colder eye. I’d say to myself: You can look at it any time, it doesn’t have to be today. But when I know that something is perishable and can’t last forever, I look at it with a feeling not just of joy but of compassion as well.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“Knulp said: “Every human being has his own soul, he can’t mix it with any other. Two people can meet, they can talk with one another, they can be close together. But their souls are like flowers, each rooted to its place. One can’t go to another, because it would have to break away from its roots, and that it can’t do. Flowers send out their scent and their seeds, because they would like to go to each other; but a flower can’t do anything to make a seed go to its right place; the wind does that, and the wind comes and goes where it pleases.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“You could observe people's folly, you could laugh at them or feel sorry for them, but you had to let them go their own way.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“If a beautiful thing were to remain beautiful for all eternity, I'd be glad, but all the same I'd look at it with a colder eye. I'd say to myself: You can look at it any time, it doesn't have to be today.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Can't you see that you had to be a reckless drifter to bring ... people a bit of child's folly and child's laughter wherever you went? To make all sorts of people love you a little and tease you a little and be a little grateful to you?”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Every day I did something wrong, and in the end I began to enjoy it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“because I loved them both and wanted to make them my own, they became to me a kind of dream figure, which looks like both of them and is neither. That figure belongs to me, but it no longer has life.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“He tried to think of death as he had done now and then, but that tired him and he dozed off. When he awoke an hour later, he felt fresh and calm as though he had slept for days.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“But we'll never again be so young … Or don't you like dancing?”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Her little treasure of experiences opened up, and it was larger than she herself would have supposed.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“[make] Sundays out of weekdays.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“I pondered my friend's words. I liked best what he had said about the fireballs since I myself often had the same feeling. The quiet spell of the colored flame, rising into the darkness and all too soon drowning in it, struck me as a symbol of all human pleasure, for the more beautiful it is, the less it satisfies us and the more quickly it is spent.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Knulp was right in doing what his nature demanded and what few others could do, in speaking to strangers like a child and winning their hearts, in saying pleasant things to ladies of all ages, and making Sundays out of weekdays.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

“The air and earth had lived in response to his dreams and desires. … [E]ven today … this world belonged to him as much as to any owners of these houses and gardens.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Las flores se marchitan
Cuando la niebla llega
Así también la gente
Y bajan a sus tumbas.
La gente es, como las flores,
Regresan a su primavera;
Y nunca más vuelven a languidecer,
Y todo les es perdonado.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“I wanted to say a prayer and tried hard to remember one, but all I could think of was silly phrases such as 'Dear Sir' and 'Under the Circumstances'. In my sadness and confusion I mumbled those.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Non fa nessuna differenza, salvo un piccolo particolare, che per me ad ogni modo è di massima importanza. Che io senta la vita guizzare in me, sia essa sulla lingua o nelle suole, sia nella voluttà o sia nel tormento, che la mia anima sia mobile e possa insinuarsi con cento giuochi della fantasia in cento forme, in parroci e viandanti, in cuoche e assassini, in fanciulli e animali, in particolare in uccelli ed anche in alberi, questo è essenziale, questo voglio e di questo ho bisogno per vivere, e se un giorno tutto questo non dovesse più essere, se la mia vita dovesse essere inquadrata nella cosidetta “realtà”, allora preferirei morire.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Her chatter had set her free from a long week of loneliness, of doing what she was told and saying nothing. She was all cheered up.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Here it is Saturday. You wouldn't know how good it feels after a hard week."
"Oh, I can imagine," said Knulp with a smile.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“You're free this evening, Barbele. You just don't want to come.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Rothfuss thought about his eccentric friend who wanted nothing of life but to look on, and ... could not have said if this was asking too much or too little.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“E poi di nuovo, come oggi, può divenirmi problematico il fatto che abbia veramente visto, udito, odorato qualcosa o se invece tutto ciò che credo di percepire altro non sia se non l'immagine della mia vita interiore proiettata fuori di me.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Non puoi essere vagabondo e artista e contemporaneamente borghese e uomo sano e decoroso. Ti vuoi ubriacare, allora tieniti anche il mal di testa! Se dici di sì alla luce del sole e alle fantasie leggiadre, devi dire sì anche alla sporcizia e al disgusto. Tutto questo è in te, oro e fango, bramosia e pena, riso infantile e paura della morte.
Dì a tutto sì , non sottrarti a niente, non tentare di eludere niente.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Patria non è qua o là. Patria è dentro te, o in nessun luogo.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp

“Niente è più odioso dei confini, niente è più stupido.”
― Hermann Hesse, Knulp