- “Words do not express thoughts very well, they
always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little
distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that
what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.”
- “Your soul is the whole world.”
- “Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise
man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else …
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do
wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach 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 waterfall, at the
ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that
the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of
the future.”
- “When someone seeks,” said Siddhartha,
“then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks,
and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks
only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is
obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being
free, being open, having no goal.”
- “It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I
must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
- “I have always believed, and I still believe,
that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it
meaning and transform it into something of value.”
- “What could I say to you that would be of value,
except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you
cannot find.”
- “We are not going in circles, we are going
upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”
- “I have had to experience so much stupidity, so
many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in
order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I
had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to
experience grace.”
- “It may be important to great thinkers to
examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important
to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be
able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and
respect.”
- “So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot
take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress,
every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which
brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that
after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each
other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or
glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.”
- “I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in
order to find a secret behind the ruins.”
- “My real self-wanders
elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my
life.”
- “Gentleness
is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than
force.”
- “When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, “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 seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with
his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be
receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for
in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your
nose.”
- “I have always thirsted for knowledge; I have
always been full of questions.”
- “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.”
- “He has robbed me, yet he has given me something
of greater value . . . he has given to me myself.”
- “Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or
ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.”
- “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.”
- “The river is everywhere.”
- “One must find the source within one’s own Self,
one must possess it. Everything else was seeking — a detour, an error.”
- “Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see
his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.”
- “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.”
- “And here
is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is
the most important thing in the world.”
- “One can beg, buy, be presented with and find
love in the streets, but it can never be stolen.”
