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Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes & Sayings

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Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked to most essential thing - mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery... It is mystery I love and pursue. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

It is you I have been able to love, you alone in all the world. You can have no idea of what that means. It means a spring in the desert, a blossoming tree in the wilderness. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

With men one could have clever, uplifting conversations, and men understood the work of an artist; but everything else-idle talk, tenderness, playfulness, love, contentment unmarred by thought-did not flourish among men; for that there had to be women and new places and constantly new impressions. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Narcissus knew only too well what a charming golden bird had flown to him. This hermit soon sensed a kindred soul in Goldmund, in spite of their apparent contrasts. Narcissus was dark and spare; Goldmund, a radiant youth. Narcissus was analytical, a thinker; Goldmund, a dreamer with the soul of a child. But something they had in common bridged these contrasts: both were refined; both were different from the others because of obvious gifts and signs; both bore the special mark of fate. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping! Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast - which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life - then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life...
Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it. To live, without renouncing the mobility of creating. Was that impossible? — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

While one is singing one does not think about whether of not the singing is useful. One simply sings. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Forgive me, father, I am not certain what my own wishes are. I shall always take pleasure in study, how could it be otherwise? But I do not believe that my life will be limited to study. A man's wishes may not always determine his destiny, his mission; perhaps there are other predetermining factors. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while the artist-created images remained unchangeably the same. He thought that the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. Perhaps the woman after whom the master shaped his beautiful Madonna is already wilted or dead, and soon he, too, will be dead; others will live in his house and eat at his table- but his work will still be standing hundreds of years from now, and longer. It will go on shimmering in the quiet cloister church, unchangingly beautiful, forever smiling with the same sad, flowering mouth. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Narcissus looked at him gravely: I take you seriously when you are Goldmund. But you're not always Goldmund. I wish nothing more than to see you become Goldmund through and through. You are not a scholar, you are not a monk - scholars and monks can have a coarser grain. You think you're not learned or logical or pious enough for me. On the contrary, you are not enough yourself. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Peter Matthiessen

O, how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all; but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening. HERMANN HESSE Narcissus and Goldmund — Peter Matthiessen

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

But how are you going to die one day, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother one cannot love. Without a mother one cannot die. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Never again!" commanded his will.
"Again! Tomorrow!" begged his heart. — Hermann Hesse

Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes By Hermann Hesse

Narcissus's thoughts were far more occupied with Goldmund than Goldmund imagined. He wanted the bright boy as a friend. He sensed in him his opposite, his complement; he would have liked to adopt, lead, enlighten, strengthen, and bring him to bloom. But he held himself back, for many reasons, almost all of them conscious. Most of all, he felt tied and hemmed in by his distaste for teachers or monks who, all too frequently, fell in love with a pupil or a novice. Often enough, he had felt with repulsion the desiring eyes of older men upon him, had met their enticements and cajoleries with wordless rebuttal. He understood them better now that he knew the temptation to love the charming boy, to make him laugh, to run a caressing hand through his blond hair. But he would never do that, never. — Hermann Hesse