Siddhartha is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. The book, Hesse’s ninth novel, was written in German, in a simple, lyrical style. Profoundly inspirational Siddhartha quotes will fire up your brain and encourage you to look at life differently while making you laugh.
If you’re searching for meaningful quotes from books that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of significant Love Story quotes, best me before you quotes and greatest Eat Pray Love quotes.
Famous Siddhartha Quotes
With a thousand eyes, the river looked at him. Hermann Hesse
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse
I felt knowledge and the unity of the world circulate in me like my own blood. Hermann Hesse
When someone seeks, said Siddhartha, then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means having a goal. But finding means being free, being open, having no goal. Herman Hesse
You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect. Hermann Hesse
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. Herman Hesse
He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman. Hermann Hesse
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. Hermann Hesse
Ephemeral, highly ephemeral is the world of formations; ephemeral, highly ephemeral are our clothes and hairstyles, and our hair and our bodies themselves. 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
How deaf and stupid have I been! he thought, walking swiftly along. When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. Hermann Hesse
We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps. Hermann Hesse
But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have in deed awakened and have not been born before this very day. Hermann Hesse
What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. 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. Hermann Hesse
It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect. Hermann Hesse
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. Hermann Hesse
So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused. Hermann Hesse
But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one touched his soul. He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment! Great, be he who would grasp this, understand this! He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices. Hermann Hesse
Words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another. Hermann Hesse
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. Hermann Hesse
I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins. Hermann Hesse
In the beauty of countless danseuses in my palace, I saw an endless suffering in the form of distorted and diseased figures as the absolute certainty towards which they were heading even as insects unwittingly consign themselves to the blazing flame. Hermann Hesse
Your soul is the whole world. Hermann Hesse
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. Hermann Hesse
Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future. Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate this very hour, and he stopped suffering. Hermann Hesse
My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life. Hermann Hesse
He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner which he loved but also despised. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to be entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honored. Hermann Hesse
I can think. I can wait. I can fast. Herman Hesse
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. Hermann Hesse
I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. Hermann Hesse
What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing, is what the driver of an ox cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he won’t feel his self any more, then he won’t feel the pains of life anymore, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he’ll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non self. Hermann Hesse
When someone is seeking, said Siddartha, It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose. Hermann Hesse
The drunkard does indeed find escape, he does indeed find short respite and rest, but he returns from the illusion and finds everything as it was before. He has not grown wiser, he has not gained knowledge, he has not climbed any higher. Hermann Hesse
And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. Hermann Hesse
Your soul is the whole world. 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
Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them. Hermann Hesse
He has robbed me, yet he has given me something of greater value he has given to me myself. Hermann Hesse
Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast. Hermann Hesse
Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them. Hermann Hesse
Content with small pleasures and yet never really satisfied! Hermann Hesse
I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha. He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time. Hermann Hesse
The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything. Hermann Hesse
The river is everywhere. Herman Hesse
Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone. Hermann Hesse
One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking a detour, an error. Hermann Hesse
Knowledge can be imparted, but not wisdom. You can discover it, it can guide your life, it can bear you up, you can do miracles with it, but you cannot tell it or teach it. Hermann Hesse
Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life. Hermann Hesse
Perhaps that is what prevents you from finding peace, perhaps it is all those words. Hermann Hesse
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. Hermann Hesse
Nothing was and nothing will be everything is, and everything is present and has existence. Hermann Hesse
Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself. Hermann Hesse
Many people, Govinda, must go through a lot of changes, must wear all sorts of robes, I am one of them, dear friend. Siddhartha
And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. Hermann Hesse
He has robbed me, the Buddha. Siddhartha
One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen. Herman Hesse
But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read it, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception. Siddhartha
Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast. Hermann Hesse
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Siddhartha
Whether it is good or evil, whether life in itself is pain or pleasure, whether it is uncertain that it may perhaps be this is not important but the unity of the world, the coherence of all events, the embracing of the big and the small from the same stream, from the same law of cause, of becoming and dying. Hermann Hesse
When someone seeks then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Siddhartha
No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine. Hermann Hesse
I have no gift I could give you for your hospitality, my dear, and also no payment for your work. I am a man without a home, a son of a Brahman and a Samana. Siddhartha
He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it. Although Siddhartha fled from the Self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animal and stone, the return was inevitable; the hour was inevitable when he would again find himself in sunshine or in moonlight, in shadow or in rain, and was again Self and Siddhartha, again felt the torment of the onerous life cycle. Herman Hesse
And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception. Siddhartha
Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better. Hermann Hesse
I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace. Siddhartha
Seeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose. Herman Hesse
I do not seek to walk on water. Siddhartha
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. Hermann Hesse
