“It was all a lie, it all stank, stank of lies, it all gave the illusion of meaning and happiness and beauty, and all of it was just putrefaction that no one would admit to. Bitter was the taste of the world. Life was a torment.”

“He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children—and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture”

“Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He worenothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak.He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted forfifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned fromhis thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlargedeyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggybeard grew on his chin. His glance turned to icy when he encounteredwomen; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a cityof nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting,mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicianstrying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day forseeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of thiswas not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank,it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful andbeautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tastedbitter. Life was torture.A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty ofthirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with anemptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that washis goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once everydesire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate partof me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer myself, the great secret.”

“Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts?”

“That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy - a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty of it, or a battleground, or a prison, but that does not make it any prettier.”

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

“And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.”