“When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easilyhappen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searchesfor, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search,because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searchingmeans: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, havingno goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because,striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which aredirectly in front of your eyes.”

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About Hermann Hesse

German-Swiss poet and novelist

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet and novelist. He won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature and is best known for novels such as Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game. His writing was shaped by his interest in Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, as well as by his engagement with Jungian analysis. Across his fiction, he returns to the search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spiritual meaning.

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Books by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha

2006

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Der Steppenwolf

2002

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Demian

2000

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Das Glasperlenspiel

1990

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Narziss und Goldmund

2003

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