True education is not education for any purpose; like all striving for perfection, it carries its purpose within itself. Just as striving to attain physical strength, dexterity, and beauty serves no ultimate end, such as making us rich, famous, and powerful, but instead is its own reward ... so the striving after 'education', that is, after improvement of the mind, is not an arduous journey toward any definite goal, but an exhilarating and fortifying broadening of our consciousness, an enrichment of our potential for life and happiness. In this respect, true education is always both a fulfillment and a stimulus.
Tags: education

Other Quotes by "Herman Hesse"

Once he said to her: 'You are like me; you are different from other people. You are Kamala and no one else, and within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat any time and be yourself, just as I can. Few people have that capacity and yet everyone could have it.
Tags: siddartha, selfhood, inner-strength, happiness
Cada época, cada cultura, cada costume e tradição tem seu próprio estilo, tem sua delicadeza e sua severidade, suas belezas e crueldades, aceitam certos sofrimentos como naturais, sofrem pacientemente certas desgraças. O verdadeiro sofrimento, o verdadeiro inferno da vida humana reside ali onde se chocam duas culturas ou duas religiões. Um homem da antiguidade, que tivesse de viver na Idade Média, haveria de sentir-se tão afogado quanto um selvagem se sentiria em nossa civilização. Há momentos em que toda uma geração cai entre dois estilos de vida, e toda evidência, toda moral, toda salvação e inocência ficam perdidos para ela. Naturalmente isso não nos atinge da mesma maneira.
Tags: philosophy
É muito mais lisonjeiro,(...)lutar-se por alguma coisa bela e ideal e saber ao mesmo tempo que não se conseguirá alcançá-la. Os ideais serão algo que se possa alcançar? Viveremos para cabar com a morte? Não, viveremos para temê-la e também para amá-la, e precisamente por causa da morte é que nossa vida vez por outra resplandece tão radiosa num belo instante.
Tags: philosophy
O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening.
Tags: understanding, philosophy, literature, knowledge
You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live.
Tags: inspirational
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