"Quotes About Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

Illustration-of-Siddhartha-Gautama.jpg

“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.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

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

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“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.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“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.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Most people...are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Whether it is good or evil, whether life in itself is pain or pleasure, whether it is uncertain-that it may perhaps be this is not important-but the unity of the world, the coherence of all events, the embracing of the big and the small from the same stream, from the same law of cause, of becoming and dying.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“...for you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than force." Vesadeva to Siddartha” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Siddhartha has one single goal-to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow-to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought-that was his goal.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

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

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“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 in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Yes Siddhartha,' he said. 'Is this what you mean: that the river is in all places at once, at its source and where it flows into the sea, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the ocean, in the mountains, everywhere at once, so for the river there is only the present moment and not the shadow of the future?'

Hermann Hesse

'It is,' Siddhartha said.'And once I learned this I considered my life, and it too was a river, and the boy Siddhartha was separated from the man Siddhartha and the graybeard Siddhartha only by shadows, not by real things. ... Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence.” 

Hermann Hesse

“But of all the water's secrets, he saw today only a single one-one that struck his soul. He saw that this water flowed and flowed, it was constantly flowing, and yet it was always there; it was always eternally the same and yet new at every moment! Oh, to be able to grasp this, to understand this!” 

Hermann Hesse

“Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Were not the gods forms created like me and you, mortal, transient?” 

Hermann Hesse

“And so Gotama wandered into the town to obtain alms, and the two Samanas recognized him only by his complete peacefulness of demeanor, by the stillness of his form, in which there was no seeking, no will, no counterfeit, no effort - only light and peace.” 

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people -- eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin.” 

Hermann Hesse

SOURCE/BUY: “Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

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