Anyone knowing how to live for the moment, to live in the present as she did, treasuring every little wayside flower with loving care and deriving value from every playful little instant, had nothing to fear from life.
Eterna meditatie asupra cauzelor tristetii si incapacitatii mele de viata era sterila si obositoare. Nu aveam totusi sentimentul ca sunt sfarsit si uzat, ci eram plin de impulsuri intunecate. Printre altele, aveam si gandul deosebit sa ma tin drept un om aparte, ale carui suferinte nimeni nu le intelege, cunoaste sau impartaseste. Diabolicul in melancolie este ca ea te face nu numai bolnav, ci de asemenea inchipuit si cu vedere scurta sau chiar trufas.
The mother of life could be called love or desire; she could also be called death, grave, or decay. Eve was the mother. She was the source of bliss as well as of death; eternally she gave birth and eternally she killed; her love was fused with cruelty. The longer he carried her image within him, the more it became a parable and a sacred symbol to him. Not.
Youth is the most difficult time of life. For example, suicide rarely occurs amongst old people.
I lived again through all the loves of my life – but under hapier stars.
To be a bear and love a she-bear, that would not be such a bad life, and would, at least, be a far better one than to keep his reason and his thoughts, with all the rest that made him human, and yet live on alone, unloved, in sadness.
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.
Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust.
They stayed for rapt moments in the crystal sphere of this soul, as if in a realm of invisible radiation, listening to unearthly music, and then returned to their daily lives with hearts cleansed and strengthened, as if descending from a high mountain peak.
We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awaking, and we were striving for an ever more perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd.
There had been a quarrel, she had been hurt, had wept. Now it was over; now she sat still and waited. Life would go on. As with children. As with animals. If only you did not talk, did not make simple things complicated, did not turn your soul inside out.
Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly.
I am curious to see all the same just how much a man can endure. If the limit of what is bearable is reached, I have only to open the door to escape.
That man is not yet a finished creation but rather a challenge of the spirit; a distant possibility dreaded as much as it is desired; that the way towards it has only been covered for a short distance and with terrible agonies and ecstasies even by those few for whom it is the scaffold today and the monument tomorrow – all this the Steppenwolf, too, suspected.
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 his arms around him, and as he was pulling him close to his chest and kissed him, it was not Govinda any more, but a woman, and a full breast popped out of the woman’s dress, at which Siddhartha lay and drank, sweetly and strongly tasted the milk from this breast.
His small fragile ship had barely escaped a disaster; now it enters a region of new storms and uncharted depths through which even the best led... cannot find a guide. He must find his own way and be his own saviour.
What you could learn from me, you child, you have learned.” “Oh no,” cried Goldmund, “we didn’t become friends to end it now! What sort of friendship would that be, that reached its goal after a short distance and then simply stopped? Are you tired of me? Have you no more affection for me?
And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life.
It seems to have been my bad luck always to receive more than I could return, from life and friends.
But each one is a gamble of Nature, a hopeful attempt at forming a human being.