Hermann Hesse

“Disse Siddharta: "Che dovrei mai dirti, io, o venerabile? Forse questo, che tu cerchi troppo? Che tu non pervieni a trovare per il troppo cercare?""Come dunque?" chiese Govinda."Quando qualcuno cerca," rispose Siddharta "allora accade facilmente che il suo occhio perda la capacità di vedere ogni altra cosa, fuori di quella che cerca, e che egli non riesca a trovar nulla, non possa assorbir nulla in sé, perché pensa sempre unicamente a ciò che cerca, perché ha uno scopo, perché è posseduto dal suo scopo. Cercare significa: avere uno scopo. Ma trovare significa: esser libero, restare aperto, non avere scopo. Tu, venerabile, sei forse di fatto uno che cerca, poiché, perseguendo il tuo scopo, non vedi tante cose che ti stanno davanti agli occhi".”

“Straight lines evidently belonged only to geometry, not to nature and life.”

“It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty, loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests, including those of one's country.”

“I don't know whether my life has been useless and merely a misunderstanding, or whether it has a meaning.”

“He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colorful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself.”

“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.”

“For much longer, he could have stayed with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he hang over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray.”

“Die meisten Menschen wollen nicht eher schwimmen als bis sie es können”

“With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side: "It is beautiful, sir, it is as you say. But isn't every life, isn't every work beautiful?”

“Each of us is merely one human being, merely an experiment, a way station. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery.”

“Wir reden zuviel", sagte er mit ungewohntem Ernst. "Das kluge Reden hat gar keinen Wert, gar keinen. Man kommt nur von sich selber weg. Von sich selber wegkommen ist Sünde. Man muss sich in sich selber völlig kriechen können wie eine Schildkröte.”

“Ach, das weiß ich heute: nichts auf der Welt ist dem Menschen mehr zuwider, als den Weg zu gehen, der ihn zu sich selber führt!”

“El pájaro rompe el cascarón. El cascarón es el mundo . Quien quiera nacer , tiene que destruir un mundo. El pájaro vuela hacia Dios. El dios se llama Abraxas”

“I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.”

“Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: "That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process.”

“All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require the medium of theories, mythologies, and lies.”

“I experienced by observing my own body and my own soul that I sorely needed sin, sorely needed concupiscence, needed greed, vanity, and the most shameful despair to learn to stop resisting, to learn to love the world and stop comparing it to some world I only wished for and imagined, some sort of perfection I myself had dreamed up, but instead to let it be as it was and to love it and be happy to belong to it.”

“A person or an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this, because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real. Time is not real.”

“These people are rare who knows how to listen.”

“Doesn't your learning reveal to you that the reason why I please you and mean so much to you is because I am a kind of looking-glass for you, because there is something in me that answers you and understands you? Really, we ought all to be such looking-glasses to each other and answer and correspond to each other.”

“He had also learned that the sick and unfortunate are far more receptive to traditional magic spells and exorcisms than to sensible advice; that people more readily accept affliction and outward penances than the task of changing themselves, or even examining themselves; that they believe more easily in magic than reason, in formulas than experience . . . They would much rather pay in money and goods than in trust and love. They cheat one another and expect to be cheated themselves. You had to learn to see man as a weak, selfish, and cowardly creature; you also had to realize how many of these evil traits and impulses you shared yourself . . . .”

“The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes, or teaches falsehood, who knowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates organic principles. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given moment, does his people a grave disservice. He corrupts its air and soil, its food and drink; he poisons its thinking and its laws, and he gives aid and comfort to all the hostile, evil forces that threaten the nation with annihilation.”

“That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.”

“I hope death will be a great happiness, a happiness as great as that of love, fulfilled love”

“Lacrimile sunt gheaţa sufletului care se topeşte.”

“The world was so beautiful when regarded like this, without searching, so simply, in such a childlike way. Moons and stas were beautiful, beautiful were bank and stream, forest and rocks, goat and gold-bug, flower and butterfly. So lovely, so delightful to go through the world this way, so like a child, awake, open to what is near, without distrust.”

“You don't force him, don't beat him, don't give him orders, because you know that 'soft' is stronger than 'hard', Water stronger than rocks, love stronger than force. Very good, I praise you. But aren't you mistaken in thinking that you wouldn't force him, wouldn't punish him? Don't you shackle him with your love? Don't you make him feel inferior every day, and don't you make it even harder on him with your kindness and patience? Don't you force him, the arrogant and pampered boy, to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters, to whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be his, whose hearts are old and quiet and beats in a different pace than his? Isn't forced, isn't he punished by all this?”

“And here now is a bit of doctrine that will make you laugh: Love, O Govinda, appears to me more important than all other matters. To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it--this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world, not to scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence.”

“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.”

“Ah, das weiß ich heute: nichts auf der Welt ist dem Menschen mehr zuwider, als den Weg zu gehen, der ihn zu sich selber führt!”

“[...], sentia que deixara atrás, nesse aprazível lugar, toda a sua vida anterior, a qual daí por diante se separaria dele. Essa sensação que tomava conta de seu espírito preocupou-o durante a vagarosa caminhada. Sidarta refletia profundamente. Mergulhava até o fundo dessa emoção, assim como se mergulha na água, para alcançar o ponto onde repousam as causas. Pois lhe parecia que o verdadeiro pensar consistia no reconhecimento das causas e que, desse modo, o sentir se convertia em saber, o qual, em vez de dissipar-se, criaria forma concreta e irradiaria o seu teor.”

“She stood a moment before my eyes, clearly and painfully, loved and deeply woven into my destiny; then fell away again in a deep oblivion, at a half regretted distance.”

“[...] ne aflam in cu totul alte raporturi fata de muzica clasica decat oamenii din epocile care au creat-o; veneratia spiritualizata si nu intotdeauna suficient eliberata de sub stapanirea unei melancolii resemnate, nutrita de noi fata de adevarata muzica, este cu totul altceva decat senina placere naiva iscata de muzica in vremurile in care a aparut [...]”

“StagesAs every flower fades and as all youthDeparts, so life at every stage,So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,Blooms in its day and may not last forever.Since life may summon us at every ageBe ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,Be ready bravely and without remorseTo find new light that old ties cannot give.In all beginnings dwells a magic forceFor guarding us and helping us to live.Serenely let us move to distant placesAnd let no sentiments of home detain us.The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain usBut lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.If we accept a home of our own making,Familiar habit makes for indolence.We must prepare for parting and leave-takingOr else remain the slaves of permanence.Even the hour of our death may sendUs speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,And life may summon us to newer races.So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.”

“But now, his liberated eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did not aim at a world beyond. Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike”

“—No debe usted entregarse a deseos en los que no cree. Sé lo que desea. Pero tiene que saber renunciar a esos deseos o desearlos de verdad. Cuando llegue a pedir con la plena seguridad de que su deseo va a ser cumplido, éste será satisfecho. Sin embargo, usted desea y al mismo tiempo se arrepiente de ello con miedo.”

“No hay más realidad que la que tenemos dentro. Por eso la mayoría de los seres humanos vive tan irrealmente; porque cree que las imágenes exteriores son la realidad y no permiten a su propio mundo interior manifestarse.”

“Du hattest ein Bild vom Leben in dir, einen Glauben, eine Forderung, du warst zu Taten, Leiden und Opfern bereit – und dann merktest du allmählich, daß die Welt gar keine Taten und Opfer und dergleichen von dir verlangt, daß das Leben keine heroische Dichtung ist, mit Heldenrollen und dergleichen, sondern eine bürgerliche gute Stube, wo man mit Essen und Trinken, Kaffee und Strickstrumpf, Tarockspiel und Radiomusik vollkommen zufrieden ist. Und wer das andere will und in sich hat, das Heldenhafte und Schöne, die Verehrung der großen Dichter oder die Verehrung der Heiligen, der ist ein Narr und ein Ritter Don Quichotte.”

“Man muss das Unmögliche versuchen, um das Mögliche zu erreichen.”

“Only the weak are put on paths without peril.”

“For there is not a single human being, not even the primitive Negro, not even the idiot, who is so conveniently simple that his being can be explained as the sum of two or three principal elements; and to explain so complex a man as Harry by the artless division into wolf and man is a hopelessly childish attempt. Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands.”

“... the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future.”

“Todos quitan, todos dan: esa es la vida”

“...con violentos latidos del corazón sentía yo la angustia de todas las angustias: el miedo a la muerte. Aun cuando no veía otra opción, aun cuando en torno se amontonaban el asco, el dolor y la desesperación, aun cuando ya nada estaba en condiciones de seducirme, ni de proporcionarme una alegría o una esperanza...”

“Nunca como en esta hora me parecía que me había hecho tanto daño la simple razón de tener que vivir.”

“During that very first conversation, about the araucaria, he called himself the Steppenwolf, and this too estranged and disturbed me a little. What an expression! However, custom did not only reconcile me to it, but soon I never thought of him by any other name; nor could I today hit on a better description of him. A wolf of the Steppes that had lost its way and strayed into the towns and the life of the herd, a more striking image could not be found for his shy loneliness, his savagery, his restlessness, his homesickness, his homelessness.”

“seriousness, young man, is an accident of time”

“In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe.”

“Ephemeral, highly ephemeral is the world of formations; ephemeral, highly ephemeral are our clothes and hairstyles, and our hair and our bodies themselves.”

“...science, to quote your own words, is nothing else than a 'strange hankering after differences'. Her essence could not be better defined. For men of science nothing is so important as the clear definition of differences.”