a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.
Interpretation
People possess both good and bad traits; no one is purely virtuous or wicked.
Hermann Hesse's quote suggests that human nature is complex and multifaceted. It challenges the black-and-white perspective of morality, asserting that everyone has a mixture of virtues and vices. This recognition promotes empathy and understanding, allowing us to see individuals as they areβnuanced beings with the capacity for both goodness and wrongdoing.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about moral complexities in literature.
I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.
That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged β to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.
I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
You're quite right there," he said. "I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.
I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
You say that you are just a body, but inside of you is something greater than the Universe.
From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.
No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.
Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get.
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