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...

A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement – yet it had been the truth.

Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to...

His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, following as ever no straight unbroken line, for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry and not...

She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brook all came toward him in new and resplendent colors, belonged to him, and spoke to him in his own language. And...

Did you,” so he asked him at one time, “did you too learn that secret from the river: that there is no time?”Vasudeva’s face was filled with a bright smile.”Yes, Siddhartha,” he spoke. “It is...

…the Master and the boy followed each other as if drawn along the wires of some mechanism, until soon it could no longer be discerned which was coming and which going, which following and which...

They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.

All the books of the world full of thoughts and poems are nothing in comparison to a minute of sobbing, when feeling surges in waves, the soul feels itself profoundly and finds itself. Tears are...

One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking — a detour, an error.

One thing, however, did become clear to him—why so many perfect works of art did not please him at all, why they were almost hateful and boring to him, in spite of a certain undeniable...

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world...

Gemeinsam aber ist allen Menschen, die des guten Willens sind, dieses: daß unsere Werke uns am Ende beschämen, daß wir immer wieder von vorn beginnen müssen, daß das Opfer immer neu gebracht werden muß.

Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor...

Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too? And could you in any way protect your son from Sansara? How could you?...

In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.

When I composed those verses I was preoccupied less with music than with an experience—an experience in which that beautiful musical allegory had shown its moral side, had become an awakening and a summons to...

Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Every so often he would display the liveliness of his intellect. When highly stimulated he could be entrancing; his mordant wit sparkled...

I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to...

What for me is bliss and life and ecstasy and exaltation, the world in general seeks at most in imagination; in life it finds it absurd.

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.

How foolish to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it...

Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the...

There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for...

Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like, sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced Govinda, wrapped...

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, the longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It...

I am a star in the firmamentthat observe the world, despises the worldand consumed in its heat.I am the sea by night in a stormthe sea shouting that accumulates new sinsand to the ancient makes...

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the...

It was a strange business and it made a sad and curious impression on me; everything that had belonged to me in these earlier years of my life left me, was alien and lost to...

Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.

…and as far as talent is concerned, there will be such an excess that our artists will become their own audiences, and audiences made up of ordinary people will no longer exist.

He brooded on how close destruction always was to all creatures, animals as well as humans, and he realized that there is nothing we can predict or know for certain in this world except death.

Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun’s melting rays. Dreams and a restlessness of the soul came to him.

Each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden.. forbidden for him. It’s possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And...

De entre los sonidos, palabras y otros elementos triviales, podemos construir juguetes líricos e intelectuales, originar filosofías y canciones llenas de mensajes y consuelo más bellas que el ruin deporte de la fortuna y el...

Here in this endless and gleaming wildernessI was removed farther than ever from the world of men –And I never saw so close and so clearlyThe image in the mirror of my own soul.

Visiems savižudžiams taip pat yra pažįstama kova su savižudybės pagunda. Kažkokiame savo sielos kamputyje kiekvienas puikiausiai žino, kad nors savižudybė ir yra išeitis, bet vis dėlto ji tėra tik šiek tiek menkas ir neteisėtas atsarginis...

then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and...

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They...

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

I feel life trembling within me, in my tongue, on the soles of my feet, in my desire or my suffering, I want my soul to be a wandering thing, able to move back into...

But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest

We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we...

The Wolf trots to and fro,The world lies deep in snow,The raven from the birch tree flies,But nowhere a hare, nowhere a roe,The roe -she is so dear, so sweet -If such a thing I...

One can pass on knowledge but not wisdom. One can find wisdom, one can live it, one can be supported by it, one can work wonders with it, but one cannot speak it or teach...

La vida de todo hombre es un camino hacia sí mismo, la tentativa de un camino, la huella de un sendero. Ningún hombre ha sido por completo él mismo; pero todos aspiran a llegar a...

Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish…It is perfectly fine with...

Narcissus’s thoughts were far more occupied with Goldmund than Goldmund imagined. He wanted the bright boy as a friend. He sensed in him his opposite, his complement; he would have liked to adopt, lead, enlighten,...

Thoughts and sorrows seem to have remained on the other side of the mountains. Between tormented men and hateful deeds, a person has to think and sorrow so much! Back there it is so difficult...