"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

Free Kindle edition here.

•  "Your soul is the whole world"
•  "And so I'm starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning."
•  "It is not my place to judge another person's life. Only for myself, for myself alone, I must decide, I must chose, I must refuse."
•  "I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself . . ."
•  "love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen"

• "He loved Siddhartha's eye and sweet voice, he loved his walk and the perfect decency of his movements, he loved everything Siddhartha did and said and what he loved most was his spirit, his transcendent, fiery thoughts, his ardent will, his high calling."
• "Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul"
• "Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal?"
• "But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it?"
• "Your soul is the whole world"
• "It had to be found, the pristine source in one's own self, it had to be possessed! Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost."
• "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"
• "A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, 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 an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal."
• "Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret."
• "He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms"
• "What is meditation? What is leaving one's body? What is fasting? What is holding one's breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk. Then he won't feel his self any more, then he won't feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses."
• "It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned!"
• "And so I'm starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning."
• "I have grown distrustful and tired against teachings and learning, and that my faith in words, which are brought to us by teachers, is small."
• "The Buddha went on his way, modestly and deep in his thoughts, his calm face was neither happy nor sad, it seemed to smile quietly and inwardly."
• "recognized him solely by the perfection of his calm, by the quietness of his appearance, in which there was no searching, no desire, no imitation, no effort to be seen, only light and peace"
• "It is not my place to judge another person's life. Only for myself, for myself alone, I must decide, I must chose, I must refuse."
• "He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to emit like rays of light what is inside of them."
• "He realized that one thing had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to teachings."
• "I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior"
• "But I have lost myself in the process."
• "I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself . . ."
• "He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time."
• "Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world!"
• "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter."
• "He, who was indeed like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to start his life anew and start again at the very beginning."
• "Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there, and for the time of one moment and breath, his heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest, as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit, would when seeing how alone he was."
• "Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last struggle of this birth."
• "Siddhartha learned something new on every step of his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted."
• "Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike."
• "love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen"
• "When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution."
• "Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal."
• "Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast."
• "Everyone takes, everyone gives, such is life."
• "Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is good, being patient is better."
• "pleasure cannot be be taken without giving pleasure"
• "he has that mysterious quality of those people to whom success comes all by itself"
• "Stop scolding, dear friend! Nothing was ever achieved by scolding."
• "Surely," Siddhartha laughed, "surely I have travelled for my amusement. For what else? I have gotten to know people and places, I have received kindness and trust, I have found friendship."
• "He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel."
• "Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the air, and wavers, and tumbles to the ground. But others, a few, are like stars, they go on a fixed course, no wind reaches them, in themselves they have their law and their course."
• "Perhaps, people of our kind can't love. The childlike people can; that's their secret."
• "slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to sleep"
• "Siddhartha had assumed something of the childlike people's ways for himself, something of their childlikeness and of their fearfulness. And yet, he envied them, envied them just the more, the more similar he became to them. He envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of being constantly in love."
• "Like a veil, like a thin mist, tiredness came over Siddhartha, slowly, getting a bit denser every day, a bit murkier every month, a bit heavier every year."
• "Tiredness was written on Kamala's beautiful face, tiredness from walking a long path, which has no happy destination, tiredness and the beginning of withering, and concealed, still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety: fear of old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having to die."
• "For how long had he not heard this voice any more, for how long had he reached no height any more, how even and dull was the manner in which his path had passed through life, for many long years, without a high goal, without thirst, without elevation, content with small lustful pleasures and yet never satisfied!"
• "the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless"
• "The wheel of physical manifestations is turning quickly"
• "The enchantment, which had happened inside of him in his sleep and by means of the Om"
• "fasting--waiting--thinking. These had been his possession, his power and strength"
• "Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has taken."
• "And yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has not died."
• "But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again and to be able to start over."
• "Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go as it likes, I want to to take it."
• "after so many years of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something, have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!"
• "It is good," he thought, "to get a taste of everything for oneself, which one needs to know."
• "Was this not his self, his small, frightened, and proud self, he had wrestled with for so many years, which had defeated him again and again, which was back again after every killing, prohibited joy, felt fear?"
• "But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one touched his soul. He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment!"
• "This was among the ferryman's virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew how to listen."
• "Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience, did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening."
• "he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion"
• "Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present."
• "Deeply he felt, more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility of every life, the eternity of every moment."
• "You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see: no sadness has entered your heart."
• "See, I'm fighting for him, I'm seeking to win his heart, with love and with friendly patience I intent to capture it."
• "his heart is proud and hard, people like this have to suffer a lot, err a lot, do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin"
• "Had he ever lost his heart so much to something, had he ever loved any person thus, thus blindly, thus sufferingly, thus unsuccessfully, and yet thus happily?"
• "Sadly, he sat down, felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any more, no goal."
• "Differently than before, he now looked upon people, less smart, less proud, but instead warmer, more curious, more involved."
• "Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness."
• "harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness"
• "On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness."
• "Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny."
• "Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don't find the time for finding?"
• "When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal."
• "wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness."
• "Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught."
• "the opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided."
• "Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness."
• "But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided."
• "within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself"
• "all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life"
• "Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me."
• "in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it"
• "everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly--yes"
• "this what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person."
• "This are things, and things can be loved. But I cannot love words. Therefore, teachings are no good for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words."
• "To be honest, I also have no high opinion of thoughts. I have a better opinion of things."
• "love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect."
• "I prefer the thing over the words, place more importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the gestures of his hand than his opinions."
• "May his teachings be strange, may his words sound foolish; out of his gaze and his hand, his skin and his hair, out of every part of him shines a purity, shines a calmness, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and holiness"
• "Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life."