Hermann Hesse

Much he learned from her red, smart mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand. Him, who was, re­gard­ing love, still a boy and had a tend­ency to plunge blindly and in­sa­ti­ably into lust like into a bot­tom­less pit, him she taught, thor­oughly start­ing with the ba­sics, about that school of thought which teaches that pleas­ure can­not be taken without giv­ing pleas­ure, and that every ges­ture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot of the body, how­ever small it was, had its secret, which would bring hap­pi­ness to those who know about it and un­leash it. She taught him that lov­ers must not part from one an­other after cel­eb­rat­ing love, without one ad­mir­ing the other, without be­ing just as de­feated as they have been vic­tori­ous, so that with none of them should start feel­ing fed up or bored and get that evil feel­ing of hav­ing ab­used or hav­ing been ab­used.

the art of re­flec­tion, the ser­vice of med­it­a­tion.

Siddhartha was thus loved by every­one. He was a source of joy for every­body, he was a de­light for them all.
But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for him­self, he found no de­light in him­self.

the soul was not calm, the heart was not sat­is­fied.

“Your soul is the whole world”

had over­come the devil, had spoken to the gods.

the world as a per­fect chain, a chain which is never and nowhere broken, an eternal chain the links of which are causes and ef­fects.

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 have learned from the river: everything is com­ing back!

love can be ob­tained by beg­ging, buy­ing, re­ceiv­ing it as a gift, find­ing it in the street, but it can­not be stolen.