And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come...

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I’ve got.

I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.

We know from several statements of Knecht’s that he wanted to write the former Master’s biography, but official duties left him no time for such a task. He had learned to curb his own wishes....

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while the artist-created images remained unchangeably the same. He thought that the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art,...

Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.

Siddhartha began to understand that it was not happiness and peace that had come to him with his son but, rather, sorrow and worry. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of...

We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.

Todos los hombres pasan por estas dificultades. Para el hombre medio es éste el punto en que las exigencias de su propia vida entran en colisión dramática con las circunstancias, el punto en que tiene...

The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanity’s most powerful and a senseless desire – the desire to forget. Does not each generation, by means...

Narcissus knew only too well what a charming golden bird had flown to him. This hermit soon sensed a kindred soul in Goldmund, in spite of their apparent contrasts. Narcissus was dark and spare; Goldmund,...

The mind cannot live in nature, only against nature, only as its counterpart.

It is wrong to say that schoolmasters lack heart and are dried-up, soulless pedants! No, by no means. When a child’s talent which he has sought to kindle suddenly bursts forth, when the boy puts...

They slept profoundly, desperately, greedily, as though for the last time, as though they had been condemned to stay awake forever and had to drink in all the sleep in the world during these last...

Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have slipped from me again, now I’m standing here under the sun again just as I have been standing here a little child, nothing is...

I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable forces, drives, and weaknesses and knows how to deal with them.

If I know what love is, it is because of you.

I do want more. I am not content with being happy. I was not made for it. It is not my destiny. My destiny is the opposite.

Sve je bilo lažno, sve je zaudaralo, vonjalo na laž, sve je bila samo obmana uma, varka sreće i ljepote, sve samo prikrivena trukež. Gorak je bio ukus svijeta. Život je bio patnja.

What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the...

The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine’s Atlas, whose...

E sempre é bom termos consciência de que dentro de nós há alguém que tudo sabe, tudo quer e age melhor do que nós mesmos

Era linistitor sa stiu ca seara nu voi mai trai.

They had been talking about astrology, a forbidden science that was not pursued in the cloister. Narcissus had said that astrology was an attempt to arrange and order the many different types of human beings...

You’ve never lived what you are thinking, and that isn’t good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge-that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and...

Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave,...

Granted, there is always much that is hidden, and we must not forget that the writing of history – however dryly it is done and however sincere the desire for objectivity – remains literature. History’s...

It is easier to bear the worries of wandering than to find peace in your hometown, where only the sage can live in a happy house surrounded by trite troubles and daily distractions.

It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)

Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for...

Somente as idéias que vivemos é que têm valor.

Both the thoughts and the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them… from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.

Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends.

What is the world doing? Have new gods been discovered, new laws, new freedoms? Who cares! But up here a primrose is blossoming and bearing silver fuzz on its leaves, and the light sweet wind...

E ora vedi: questo “un giorno” è illusione, è soltanto un modo di dire! Il peccatore non è in cammino per diventare Buddha, non è coinvolto in un processo di sviluppo, sebbene il nostro pensiero...

Fate and character are different names for the same idea.

How Heavy the Days. . .How heavy the days are.There’s not a fire that can warm me,Not a sun to laugh with me,Everything bare,Everything cold and merciless,And even the beloved, clearStars look desolately down,Since I...

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Often it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them.

Times of terror and the deepest misery may arrive, but if there is to be any happiness in this misery it can only be a spiritual happiness, related to the past in the rescue of...

Among the many worlds which man did not receive as a gift of nature, but which he created with his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Every child, scrawling his first letters...

Is it only I alone who have created this experience, or is it objective reality? Does the Master have the same feelings as I, or would mine amuse him? Are my thoughts new, unique, my...

Sufría menos con un dolor real y físico que con el temor de agonía de que volviera la conciencia y me arrebataran la copa del olvido que la muerte me brindaba.

Mas cada um de nós é um ser total do mundo, e da mesma forma como o corpo integra toda a trajetória da evolução, remontando ao peixe e mesmo a antes, levamos em nossa alma...

One never reaches home,’ she said. ‘But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.

He raised himself above her pallid face and kissed her on both closed eyes and thought: she thinks she is taking and does not know that she is giving; in her loneliness she has fled...

It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is...

I felt knowledge and the unity of the world circulate in me like my own blood.

music of decline” had sounded, as in that wonderful Chinese fable; like a thrumming bass on the organ its reverberations faded slowly out over decades; its throbbing could be heard in the corruption of the...