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You Should Not Take Old People Who Are Already Dead Seriously. It Does Them Injustice. We Immortals Do Not Like Things To Be Taken Seriously. We Like Joking. Seriousness, Young Man, Is An Accident Of Time. It Consists, I Don't Mind Telling You In Confidence, In Putting Too High A Value On Time. I, Too, Once Put Too High A Value On Time. For That Reason I Wished To Be A Hundred Years Old. In Eternity, However, There Is No Time, You See. Eternity Is A Mere Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke.

-Hermann Hesse

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You Should Not Take

Hermann Hesse

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You Should Not Take Old People Who Are Already Dead Seriously. It Does Them Injustice. We Immortals Do Not Like Things To Be Taken Seriously. We Like Joking. Seriousness, Young Man, Is An Accident Of Time. It Consists, I Don't Mind Telling You In Confidence, In Putting Too High A Value On Time. I, Too, Once Put Too High A Value On Time. For That Reason I Wished To Be A Hundred Years Old. In Eternity, However, There Is No Time, You See. Eternity Is A Mere Moment, Just Long Enough For A Joke.

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I Can Think. I Can Wait. I Can Fast.

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An Enlightened Man Had But One Duty - To Seek The Way To Himself, To Reach Inner Certainty, To Grope His Way Forward, No Matter Where It Led.

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But Peace, Too, Is A Living Thing And Like All Life It Must Wax And Wane, Accommodate, Withstand Trials, And Undergo Changes.

Every Man's Story Is Important, Eternal And Sacred. That Is Why Every Man, As Long As He Lives And Fulfills The Will Of Nature, Is Wondrous And Worthy Of Every Consideration.

There Is No Reality Except The One Contained Within Us. That Is Why So Many People Live Such An Unreal Life. They Take The Images Outside Them For Reality And Never Allow The World Within To Assert Itself.

How Could I Fail To Be A Lone Wolf, And An Uncouth Hermit, As I Did Not Share One Of Its Aims Nor Understand One Of Its Pleasures?

Dreams And Restless Thoughts Came Flowing To Him From The River, From The Twinkling Stars At Night, From The Sun's Melting Rays. Dreams And A Restlessness Of The Soul Came To Him.

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.

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Human Life Is Reduced To Real Suffering, To Hell, Only When Two Ages, Two Cultures And Religions Overlap.

Love Is Stronger Than Violence.

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At That Time Two Opposing Concepts Of The Game Called Forth Commentary And Discussion. The Foremost Players Distinguished Two Principal Types Of Game, The Formal And The Psychological.

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Among The Letters My Readers Write Me, There Is A Certain Category Which Is Continuously Growing, And Which I See As A Symptom Of The Increasing Intellectualization Of The Relationship Between Readers And Literature.

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What Is The Holding Of Breath? It 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.

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But It's A Poor Fellow Who Can't Take His Pleasure Without Asking Other People's Permission.

Nothing Is Harder, Yet Nothing Is More Necessary, Than To Speak Of Certain Things Whose Existence Is Neither Demonstrable Nor Probable. The Very Fact That Serious And Conscientious Men Treat Them As Existing Things Brings Them A Step Closer To Existence And To The Possibility Of Being Born.

Love Must Not Entreat,' She Added, 'or Demand. Love Must Have The Strength To Become Certain Within Itself. Then It Ceases Merely To Be Attracted And Begins To Attract.

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When The Suffering Becomes Acute Enough, One Goes Forward.

To Achieve The Possible, We Must Attempt The Impossible Again And Again.

Again And Again

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Happiness Is A How; Not A What. A Talent, Not An Object.

You Make Me Happy

A House Without Books Is A Poor House, Even If Beautiful Rugs Are Covering Its Floors And Precious Wallpapers And Pictures Cover Its Walls

The Bourgeois Prefers Comfort To Pleasure, Convenience To Liberty, And A Pleasant Temperature To The Deathly Inner Consuming Fire.

So Wie Die Verruecktheit In Einem Hoeheren Sinn, Der Anfang Aller Weisheit Ist, So Ist Die Schizophrenie Der Anfang Aller Kunst, Aller Phantasie. (as Insanity In A Higher Sense, Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom, So Is Schizophrenia The Beginning Of All Art, All Fantasy.)

The Highest Art... Sets Down Its Creations And Trusts In Their Magic, Without Fear Of Not Being Understood.

We Have To Stumble Through So Much Dirt And Humbug Before We Reach Home. And We Have No One To Guide Us. Our Only Guide Is Our Homesickness.

Only The Ideas That We Really Live Have Any Value.

Rain Soft Rain, Summer Rain Whispers From Bushes, Whispers From Trees. Oh, How Lovely And Full Of Blessing To Dream And Be Satisfied. I Was So Long In The Outer Brightness, I Am Not Used To This Upheaval: Being At Home In My Own Soul, Never To Be Led Elsewhere. I Want Nothing, I Long For Nothing, I Hum Gently The Sounds Of Childhood, And I Reach Home Astounded In The Warm Beauty Of Dreams. Heart, How Torn You Are, How Blessed To Plow Down Blindly, To Think Nothing, To Know Nothing, Only To Breathe, Only To Feel.

That Is Why We Were Drawn To One Another And Why We Are Brother And Sister. I Am Going To Teach You To Dance And Play And Smile, And Still Not Be Happy. And You Are Going To Teach Me To Think And To Know And Yet Not Be Happy. Do You Know That We Are Both Children Of The Devil?

It Was Lovely, And Tempting, To Exert Power Over Men And To Shine Before Others, But Power Also Had Its Perditions And Perils.

The Art Of Love-giving And Taking Become One.

We Are Not Going In Circles, We Are Going Upwards. The Path Is A Spiral; We Have Already Climbed Many Steps.

To Recognize Causes Is To Think, And Through Thought Alone Feelings Become Knowledge And Are Not Lost, But Become Real And Begin To Mature.

A Person Is Never Entirely Holy Or Entirely Sinful.

Every Path Leads Homeward, Every Step Is Birth, Every Step Is Death, Every Grave Is Mother.

One Must Find The Source Within One's Own Self, One Must Possess It. Everything Else Was Seeking -- A Detour, An Error.

You Have No Doubt Guessed Long Since That The Conquest Of Time And The Escape From Reality, Or However Else It May Be That You Choose To Describe Your Longing, Means Simply The Wish To Be Relieved Of Your So-called Personality. That Is The Prison Where You Lie.

I Was Out Of My Bed In One Second, Trembling With Excitement, And I Dashed To The Door And Into The Adjoining Room, Where I Could Watch The Streets Below From The Windows.

The Call Of Death Is A Call Of Love. Death Can Be Sweet If We Answer It In The Affirmative, If We Accept It As One Of The Great Eternal Forms Of Life And Transformation.

Those Who Direct The Maximum Force Of Their Desires Toward The Center, Toward True Being, Toward Perfection, Seem Quieter Than The Passionate Souls Because The Flame Of Their Fervor Cannot Always Be Seen.

Trees Are Sanctuaries. Whoever Knows How To Speak To Them, Whoever Knows How To Listen To Them, Can Learn The Truth. They Do Not Preach Learning And Precepts, They Preach, Undeterred By Particulars, The Ancient Law Of Life.

You Know Quite Well, Deep Within You, That There Is Only A Single Magic, A Single Power, A Single Salvation...and That Is Called Loving. Well, Then, Love Your Suffering. Do Not Resist It, Do Not Flee From It. It Is Your Aversion That Hurts, Nothing Else.

Whither Will My Path Yet Lead Me? This Path Is Stupid, It Goes In Spirals, Perhaps In Circles, But Whichever Way It Goes, I Will Follow It.

When We Have Learned How To Listen To Trees, Then The Brevity And The Quickness And The Childlike Hastiness Of Our Thoughts Achieve An Incomparable Joy. Whoever Has Learned How To Listen To Trees No Longer Wants To Be A Tree. He Wants To Be Nothing Except What He Is. That Is Home. That Is Happiness.

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Sentimentality Is A Basking In Feelings That In Reality You Don't Take Seriously Enough To Make The Slightest Sacrifice To Or Ever Translate Into Action.

Those Who Are Too Lazy And Comfortable To Think For Themselves And Be Their Own Judges Obey The Laws. Others Sense Their Own Laws Within Them.

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Here And There In The Ancient Literature We Encounter Legends Of Wise And Mysterious Games That Were Conceived And Played By Scholars, Monks, Or The Courtiers Of Cultured Princes. These Might Take The Form Of Chess Games In Which The Pieces And Squares Had Secret Meanings In Addition To Their Usual Functions.

Age Is A State Of Mind. Youth And Age Exist Only Among The Ordinary People. All The More Talented And Exceptional Of Us; Are Sometimes Old, Just As We Are Sometimes Happy, And Sometimes Sad.

Never Is A Man Wholly A Saint Or A Sinner.

My Resolve To Die Was Not The Whim Of An Hour. It Was The Ripe, Sound Fruit That Had Slowly Grown To Full Size, Lightly Rocked By The Winds Of Fate Whose Next Breath Would Bring It To The Ground.

Abraxas Was The God Who Was Both God And Devil.

Love Of God Is Not Always The Same As Love Of Good.

Beautiful Was This World, Looking At It Thus, Without Searching, Thus Simply, Thus Childlike.

It Was All A Lie, It All Stank, Stank Of Lies, It All Gave The Illusion Of Meaning And Happiness And Beauty, And All Of It Was Just Putrefaction That No One Would Admit To. Bitter Was The Taste Of The World. Life Was A Torment.

I Realize Today That Nothing In The World Is More Distasteful To A Man Than To Take The Path That Leads To Himself.

Alas, Siddhartha, I See You Suffering, But You're Suffering A Pain At Which One Would Like To Laugh, At Which You'll Soon Laugh For Yourself.

I Live In My Dreams — That's What You Sense. Other People Live In Dreams, But Not In Their Own. That's The Difference.

To Be Able To Throw One's Self Away For The Sake Of A Moment, To Be Able To Sacrifice Years For A Woman's Smile - That Is Happiness.

Young People Have Many Pleasures And Many Sorrows, Because They Only Have Themselves To Think Of, So Every Wish And Every Notion Assume Importance; Every Pleasure Is Tasted To The Full, But Also Every Sorrow, And Many Who Find That Their Wishes Cannot Be Fulfilled, Immediately Put An End To Their Lives.

I Have Always Been A Great Dreamer; In Dreams I Am More Active Than In My Real Life, And These Shadows Sapped Me Of Health And Energy.

Any Attempt To Replace A Personal Conscience By A Collective Conscience Does Violence To The Individual And Is The First Step Toward Totalitarianism.

The Diabolical Thing About Melancholy Is Not That It Makes You Ill But That It Makes You Conceited And Shortsighted; Yes Almost Arrogant. You Lapse Into Bad Taste, Thinking Of Yourself As Heine's Atlas, Whose Shoulders Support All The World's Puzzles And Agonies, As If Thousands, Lost In The Same Maze, Did Not Endure The Same Agonies.

That's The Way It Is When You Love. It Makes You Suffer, And I Have Suffered Much In The Years Since. But It Matters Little That You Suffer, So Long As You Feel Alive With A Sense Of The Close Bond That Connects All Living Things, So Long As Love Does Not Die!

It Taught Him How To Listen -- How To Listen With A Quiet Heart And A Waiting Soul, Open Soul, Without Passion, Without Desire, Without Judgment, Without Opinion.

...and The Vessel Was Not Full, His Intellect Was Not Satisfied, His Soul Was Not At Peace, His Heart Was Not Still.

The Realization That My Problem Was One That Concerned All Men, A Problem Of Living And Thinking, Suddenly Swept Over Me And I Was Overwhelmed By Fear And Respect As I Suddenly Saw And Felt How Deeply My Own Personal Life And Opinions Were Immersed In The Eternal Stream Of Great Ideas. Though It Offered Some Confirmation And Gratification, The Realization Was Not Really A Joyful One. It Was Hard And Had A Harsh Taste Because It Implied Responsibility And No Longer Being Allowed To Be A Child; It Meant Standing On One’s Own Feet.

The Judge Who Sits Over The Murderer And Looks Into His Face, And At One Moment Recognizes All The Emotions And Potentialities And Possibilities Of The Murderer In His Own Soul And Hears The Murderer's Voice As His Own, Is At The Next Moment One And Indivisible As The Judge, And Scuttles Back Into The Shell Of His Cultivated Self And Does His Duty And Condemns The Murderer To Death.

Life Is Waiting Everywhere, The Future Is Flowering Everywhere, But We Only See A Small Part Of It And Step On Much Of It With Our Feet

If My Life Were Not A Dangerous, Painful Experiment, If I Did Not Constantly Skirt The Abyss And Feel The Void Under My Feet, My Life Would Have No Meaning And I Would Not Have Been Able To Write Anything.

Each Man Had Only One Genuine Vocation - To Find The Way To Himself....his Task Was To Discover His Own Destiny - Not An Arbitrary One - And To Live It Out Wholly And Resolutely Within Himself. Everything Else Was Only A Would-be Existence, An Attempt At Evasion, A Flight Back To The Ideals Of The Masses, Conformity And Fear Of One's Own Inwardness.

...as Every One Of Us Knows, There Are Some Festivals And Games In Which Everything Goes Right, And Every Element Lifts Up, Animates, And Exalts Every Other, Just As There Are Theatrical And Musical Performances Which Without Any Clearly Discernible Cause Seem To Ascend Miraculously To Glorious Climaxes And Intensely Felt Experiences, Whereas Others, Just As Well Prepared, Remain No More Than Decent Tries.

We Kill At Every Step, Not Only In Wars, Riots And Executions. We Kill When We Close Our Eyes To Poverty, Suffering And Shame.in The Same Way All Disrespect For Life, All Hard-heartedness,all Indifference, All Contempt Is Nothing Else Than Killing.

Every Sin Already Carries Grace Within In, All Small Children Are Potential Old Men, All Sucklings Have Death Within Them, All Dying People - Eternal Life. The Buddha Exists In The Robber And Dice Player; The Robber Exists In The Brahmin.

She Stood Before Him And Surrendered Herself To Him And Sky, Forest, And Brook All Came Toward Him In New And Resplendent Colors, Belonged To Him, And Spoke To Him In His Own Language. And Instead Of Merely Winning A Woman He Embraced The Entire World And Every Star In Heaven Glowed Within Him And Sparkled With Joy In His Soul. He Had Loved And Had Found Himself. But Most People Love To Lose Themselves.

It Is Not For Me To Judge Another Man's Life. I Must Judge, I Must Choose, I Must Spurn, Purely For Myself. For Myself, Alone.

Man Is An Onion Made Up Of A Hundred Integuments, A Texture Made Up Of Many Threads. The Ancient Asiatics Knew This Well Enough, And In The Buddhist Yoga An Exact Technique Was Devised For Unmasking The Illusion Of The Personality. The Human Merry-go-round Sees Many Changes: The Illusion That Cost India The Efforts Of Thousands Of Years To Unmask Is The Same Illusion That The West Has Labored Just As Hard To Maintain And Strengthen.

Everything That Was Not Suffered To The End And Finally Concluded, Recurred, And The Same Sorrows Were Undergone.

I Do Not Consider Myself Less Ignorant Than Most People. I Have Been And Still Am A Seeker, But I Have Ceased To Question Stars And Books. I Have Begun To Listen To The Teachings My Blood Whispers To Me. My Story Is Not A Pleasant One; It Is Neither Sweet Nor Harmonious, As Invented Stories Are; It Has The Taste Of Nonsense And Chaos, Of Madness And Dreams -- Like The Lives Of All Men Who Stop Deceiving Themselves.

"you Do Not Really Love Me — You Love Nobody. Is That Not True?" "maybe," Said Siddhartha Wearily. "i Am Like You. You Cannot Love Either, Otherwise How Could You Practice Love As An Art? Perhaps People Like Us Cannot Love. Ordinary People Can — That Is Their Secret."

Lucid And Quiet His Voice Hovered Above The Listeners, Like A Light, Like A Starry Sky.

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Kathleen Quinlan

Robert Griffin III

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