We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature's determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same. For them mankind--which they loved as much as we did--was a fully formed entity that had to be preserved and protected. For us mankind was a distant future toward which we were all journeying, whose aspect no one knew, whose laws weren't written down anywhere.
Hermann HesseTag: humanity hermann-hesse demian
Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood, Yet, what a real living human being is made of seems to be less understood today than at any time before, and men - each one of whom represents a unique and valuable experiment on the part of nature - are therefore shot wholesale nowadays. If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
Hermann HesseTag: religion story novel hermann-hesse human-beings demian
For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.
Hermann HesseTag: death birth hermann-hesse demian
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 HesseTag: children feelings thoughts hermann-hesse adult demian
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 HesseTag: duty enlightenment hermann-hesse demian
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 HesseTag: war ideals hermann-hesse demian
Sinclair, your love is attracted to me. Once it begins to attract me, i will come. I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won.
Hermann HesseTag: hermann-hesse demian
Permanecí largo rato mirándole, y sentí entonces, lejos aún en mi subconsciente, algo muy singular. Vi que el rostro de Demian no solamente era el de un muchacho, sino el de un hombre, pero me pareció ver todavía algo más: era como si en él hubiera también algo de un rostro de una mujer, y además, por un instante, aquel rostro no me pareció ya viril o infantil, maduro o joven, sino, en cierto modo, milenario; en cierto modo, fuera del tiempo, marcado por edades distintas a la que nosotros vivimos. Los animales pueden presentar ese aspecto, o los árboles, o las estrellas. Yo no lo sabía. No sentí exactamente por entonces esto que ahora describo; pero sí algo semejante. Tampoco supe en forma clara si la figura de Demian me atraía o me repelía. Sólo vi que era distinto de nosotros, que era como un animal, o como un espíritu, o como una pintura; pero distinto, extrañamente distinto de todos nosotros.
Hermann HesseTag: naturaleza humanidad demian temporalidad
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