\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\section*{Absätze}
Continous text can be written directly
in the source code.
Simple line breaks
are ignored,
just as     multiple space characters.

An empty line creates a new paragraph
which has an indentation by default.
Manual line breaks can be forced
with two backslashes,
but normally they have no business \\
in continuous text.
\end{document}