Great Throughts Treasury

"If man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Therefore, fasting is useful, sir."

"If my music stirred the soul, then I understood without words but all felt in the depths of all life pure harmony and believed to know that a meaning and beautiful law was hidden in all events. If it was an illusion, but I lived in it, and was happy in it."

"If that was love, with cruelty here and humiliation there, then it was better to live without love."

"If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine? Joseph Knect said to his Music Master 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 perfection in yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived not taught"

"If we have a people happier and more cheerful can, so we should do it in any case, he likes us to ask for it or not."

"If we hate a person, so we hate something that sits within us in his image. What is not in ourselves that does not upset us."

"If you need something desperately and find it, this is not an accident; your own craving and compulsion leads you to it."

"If you order, with the absolute conviction that his wish will come, it will happen that way. But you mix the desire, fear and regret, and that is a contradiction."

"I'll taste- she continued, for the reason I told you; I broke your loneliness, I have collected just before the door of hell and I have reawakened. But I want you more, much more. I want to make you fall in love with me. No, not contradict me, let me speak. You liked it, I realize that, and you are grateful me, but love me you're not. I'll do what you are, this belongs to my profession; I live like that, to be able to make men fall in love with me. But find out well: I do this because I find downright charming. I'm not like you love me. But I need you, like you need me. You need me now, for now, because you're desperate and you need a boost that you take water and revive you again. I need to learn to dance, to learn to laugh, to learn to live. I, however, I also need you, not today, later, for something very important and beautiful. I'll give you my last order when you're in love with me, and you obey, and it will be good for you and me. It will not be easy thing must, but you will, I will fulfill my mandate and kill. That is all. Do not ask anything more."

"I'll teach you to dance and play and smile no longer be content, however. And you learn to think and know no longer be satisfied, despite everything."

"I'm a star in the firmament, looking at the world despise the world and burns in the suitable embers. I am the sea, which has a fantastic at night, the plaintive sea, the victim difficult new piles to old sins. I am banished from your world, brought up by pride lied by pride, I'm the king without a country. I am the silent passion, in the house with no stove, in the war without sword suitable to my sick and strength."

"I'm not kidding. I'm telling you what I've found. 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. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers."

"I'm not a man who knows. I have been a man and I am still looking, but no longer looking at the stars or in the books begin to hear the teachings my blood whispers in me."

"I'm intelligent? but let me warn you you're thirsty to the knowledge of the game ideas. Opinions do not mean anything, it may be beautiful or ugly, smart or stupid... The teachings that you listened to my heart, it is not aimed at interpreting the world, but the salvation of pain. Siddhartha said: O teacher that no one will find salvation through teachings, and you could not be transferred to a by teachings, what happened to you an hour of enlightenment after a long journey from the bitter thought and contemplation, knowledge and torment."

"I'm reading: The majority of people do not want to face without learning how to swim. What a meaningful word, is not it? Their reluctance to face natural because they have been created to live on land, not water. And also do not want to think about natural because they have been created to live, not to think! Well, whoever thought, whoever is thinking of doing the basic deal for him, this one to reach a high point; however, the mainland has swapped the water drowning and that one day comes."

"I'm very happy with my happiness. I can still undergo a while. Only when he gives me a respite time for awareness to become nostalgic, then all this nostalgia tends not to always keep this happiness, but to suffer again, bigger, more beautiful than before. I consumed the need for pain that makes me ready and willing to die."

"In any case, the life of a drunk is presumably livelier than that of the ordinary well-behaved citizen. And then?I read that once somewhere?the life of a hedonist is the best preparation for becoming a mystic. People like St. Augustine are always the ones that become visionaries."

"In any case I fully endorse the singer's attitude towards the booklet that he will write and the child he wishes to educate, for not only am I familiar with the passion for education but the desire to write a small book has for a long time also not been far from my thoughts, and now that I am free of my office this desire has assumed the proportions of a precious and alluring promise?to write a book in all good-humor and at my leisure, a pamphlet, an insignificant booklet for my friends and fellow thinkers. And upon what subject, may I ask?' put in Designori with curiosity. 'Oh the subject would not matter so much. It would merely be an opportunity for me to weave my thoughts around some theme and to enjoy the good fortune of having a great deal of free time. The chief thing in my case would be the tone?a tone not of scholarship but a decorous mean between respect and intimacy, between gravity and playfulness, a friendly communication and utterance of sundry things that I believe I have experienced and learned? In the immediate future I cannot anticipate the joys and problems of writing my little book, for I have to prepare myself the luxury of blossoming into authorship, as I see it, with a comfortable but careful presentation of things, not for my solitary pleasure but always bearing in mind a few good friends and readers."

"In any case, the most lively young people become the best old people, not those who pretend to be as wise as grandfathers while they are still at school."

"In course of time I was more and more conscious, too, that this affliction was not due to any defects of nature, but rather to a profusion of gifts and powers which had not attained to harmony. I saw that Haller was a genius of suffering and that in the meaning of many sayings of Nietzsche he had created within himself with positive genius a boundless and frightful capacity of pain. I saw at the same time that the root of his pessimism was not world-contempt but self-contempt; for however mercilessly he might annihilate institutions and persons in his talk he never spared himself. It was always at himself first and foremost that he aimed the shaft, himself first and foremost whom he hated and despised."

"In fact, at times I preferred to live in the forbidden world, and frequently my return home to the bright realm, no matter how necessary and good that might be, was almost like a return to someplace less beautiful,"

"In certain circles [moderation] requires courage to miss a premiŠre. In wider circles it takes courage not to have read a new publication several weeks after its appearance. In the widest circles of all, one is an object of ridicule if one has not read the daily paper. But I know people who feel no regret at exercising this courage."

"In eternity, however, no time, you see: eternity is only a moment, long enough for a joke."

"In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other."

"In his heart he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him: Love this water! Stay near it! Learn from it! Oh yes, he wanted to learn from it, he wanted to listen to it. He who would understand this water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many other things, many secrets, all secrets."

"In fact, he was never able to completely dissolve the other man, and a surrender to forget yourself, do folly of love for another; He never paid it, and then it seemed that as soon as this feature devoted to children from the people."

"In his youth when he was poor and had difficulty in earning his bread, he preferred to go hungry and in torn clothes rather than endanger his narrow limit of independence. He never sold himself for money or an easy life or to women or to those in power; and had thrown away a hundred times what in the worlds eyes was his advantage and happiness in order to safeguard his liberty. No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him than that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routine and obey others."

"In its place, I would lift my altar with the image of Beatrice; and in consecrating myself to it, I would consecrate myself to the spirit world and the gods. The part of life that robbed the forces of evil sacrificed them to those of the light. My goal was not pleasure, but purity; not happiness, but beauty and spirit."

"In my brain were stored a thousand pictures."

"In life there is no duty except for duty: to be happy. We were therefore in the world, and with all the duties, all morality and all the commandments rarely do each other happy, because time itself does not do happy. If a man can be good, can it only when he's happy, when the fund itself has, therefore she loves. This was the teaching, only learning in the world. That said, Jesus, Buddha That said, it is said Hegel. For everyone in the world is all that matters his own innermost, his soul, his ability to love. If she is right, then it does not matter whether eating millet or cakes, they carry the jewels or rags; then the world sounds together with the soul, then it is good."

"In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us share this delusion."

"In order to go even his need for solitude and independence together. Never man had a deeper, more passionate need for independence as he. In his youth, when he was still poor and struggled to earn his bread, he preferred to starve and go in torn clothes, just for a bit of independence to save."

"In the beginning his dream and his happiness, in the end it was his bitter fate...But in the midst of the freedom he had attained Harry suddenly became aware that his freedom was a death and that he stood alone."

"In some periods interviews with well-known personalities on current problems were particularly popular. Noted chemists or piano virtuosos would be queried about politics, for example, or popular actors, dancers, gymnasts, aviators, or even poets would be drawn out on the benefits and drawbacks of being a bachelor, or on the presumptive causes of financial crises, and so on. All that mattered in these pieces was to link a well-known name with a subject of current topical interest. It is very hard indeed for us to put ourselves in the place of those people so that we can truly understand them. But the great majority, who seem to have been strikingly fond of reading, must have accepted all these grotesque things with credulous earnestness."

"In spite of their friendship, they were so far apart, the bowstring was so taut between them: a seeing man and a blind man, they walked side by side; The blind man's unawareness of his own blindness was a consolation only to himself."

"In the art of love, she said thoughtfully, you are the best I?ve ever seen. You are stronger than others, more agile, more willing. Well, have you learned my art, Siddhartha. Someday, when I am older, I wish to bear your child. And yet all this time, beloved, you have remained a Samana. Even now you do not love me; you love no one. Is it not so? It may be so, Siddhartha said wearily. I am like you. You, too, do not love?how else could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret."

"In the evening of our acquaintance, all living in this beautiful and sincere forgiving spend manic happiness to people under the eyes glance to be considered a good thing, then it cannot be from a bad action of man, I had inside me cannot think of a bad thing. And yet the unity and integrity after that evening, he found a place with a vengeance can relieve longing me for a subtle harmony of each pulse shot in my presence to view and voice, I knew that someone lives on earth will no longer respond with all the purity and sincerity of each breath."

"In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practicing with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe."

"In the real tale of tales is always something that the listener believes."

"In the fog strange to wander in the mist! Lonely is every bush and stone, No tree sees the other, one is all alone. Was full of friends the world to me, as yet my life was light; Now that the fog falls, no one is more visible. Truly, no one is wise, does not know the darkness, the inescapable and softly separates him from all. Strangely, the fog hike! Life is loneliness. No one knows the other, one is all alone."

"In this atmosphere of wintry desolation and isolation, this slowly, very slowly increasing chill, my hands and lips started to freeze. Had I extinguished the sun? Had I killed the heart of all life?"

"In this dream world he lived more than in the real world: School Hall, monastery courtyard... was only surface, only a thin skin over the dream-filled, imagery. A nothing was enough to butt in this thin skin a hole, and to kindle the roaring chasms, streams and Milky Way that soul imagery behind the peaceful arid reality."

"In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. 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."

"Inasmuch as every man takes the sufferings that fall to his share as the greatest."

"In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practicing debate with Govinda, practicing with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe."

"In young beings there is something wild, ungovernable, uncultured, which first has to be tamed. It is like a dangerous flame that has to be controlled or it will destroy. Natural man is unpredictable, opaque, dangerous like a torrent cascading out of uncharted mountains. At the start, his soul is a jungle without paths or order. And, like a jungle, it must first be cleared and its growth thwarted. Thus it is the school's task to subdue and control man with force and make him a useful member of society, to kindle those qualities in him whose development will bring him to triumphant completion."

"Instead of simplifying your soul, you have to accommodate increasing world with your soul painfully widened."

"Intelligence loves what is fixed, which form; she wants to trust his signs, she likes what is, not what is in the making; the real, not the possible. It does not tolerate that omega becomes a snake or bird. The intelligence cannot live in nature, but only in front of it, like it?s opposite."

"Intensity of life is only possible at the expense of self. But there is nothing members of the bourgeoisie value more highly than self, albeit only at a rudimentary stage of development. Thus, at the expense of intensity, they manage to preserve their selves and make them secure. Instead of possession by God, an easy conscience is the reward they reap; instead of desire, contentment; instead of liberty, cosiness; instead of life-threatening heat, an agreeable temperature."

"Is a flight from the Self, it is a temporary escape from the torment of Self. It is a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life. The driver of oxen makes this same flight, takes this temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or coconut milk in the inn. He then no longer feels his Self, no longer feels the pain of life; he then experiences temporary escape. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he finds what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape from their bodies by long exercises and dwell in the non-Self."