Gustav Meyrink Quotes & Sayings

A brief rustling that broke off short, as if startled at itself, then deadly silence, that agonising, watchful hush, fraught with its own betrayal, that stretched each minute to an excruciating eternity. — Gustav Meyrink

The longing for wisdom itself is wisdom' - 'search for a fixed point within yourself, my child, that the world cannot reach' - regard everything that happens as a lifeless painting and do not let yourself be touched by it, — Gustav Meyrink

Nothing essential happens through death, only through birth and that is the whole trouble - But shouldn't we be speaking of something more important than life and death? — Gustav Meyrink

The face before him was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was smooth, with a black strip of cloth tied over its forehead, and yet it was deeply furrowed, like the sea, that can have tall waves but not a wrinkle on the surface. The eyes were like dark chasms and yet they were the eyes of a human being and not empty sockets. The skin was a greenish olive colour and looked as if it were made of bronze ... — Gustav Meyrink

The soul is not a single unity; that is what it is destined to become, and that is what we call 'immortality'. Your soul is still composed of many 'selves', just as a colony of ants is composed of many single ants. You bear within you the spiritual remains of many thousand ancestors, the heads of your line. It is the same with all creatures. How could a chicken that is artificially hatched in an incubator immediately look for the right food, if the experience of millions of years were not stored inside it? The existence of 'instinct' indicates the presence of our ancestors in our bodies and in our souls. — Gustav Meyrink

It is the narrow, hidden tracks that lead back to our lost homeland, what contains the solution to the last mysteries is not the ugly scar that life's rasp leaves on us, but the fine, almost invisible writing that is engraved on our body. — Gustav Meyrink

I have not let myself be stultified by science, whose highest goal is to furnish a 'waiting room', which it would be best to tear down. — Gustav Meyrink