He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children-and 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
("Siddhartha")
More Quotes from Hermann Hesse:
He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman.Hermann Hesse
With a secret smile, not unlike that of a healthy child,he walked along, peacefully, quietly. He wore his gown and walked along exactly like the other monks, but his face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand, and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing, reflected a continuous quiet, an unfading light, an invulnerable peace.
Hermann Hesse
I should not have had that fear of death when I wished for it all the same. The unhappiness that I need and long for is different. It is of the kind that will let me suffer with eagerness and lust after death. That is the unhappiness, or happiness, that I am waiting for.
Hermann Hesse
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
I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.
Hermann Hesse
You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect.
Hermann Hesse
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Based on Topics: Beauty Quotes, Lies & Deceit Quotes, Life Quotes, Medicine & Medical Quotes, Mothers Quotes, Trading Quotes, World QuotesBased on Keywords: children-and, mourners, putrefaction, stank
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