Narcissus And Goldmund Quotes

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

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

And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds. Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering.
At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul. ~ 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

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

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

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

Never again!" commanded his will.
"Again! Tomorrow!" begged his heart. ~ 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

Christmas is very special and not a sell-out date. If you are not sure, ask your heart. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

The birth of Jesus
Without officious statement
Quietly and gently
Directly into our hearts ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

So Recklessly Exposed

December and January, gone.
Tulips coming up. It's time to watch
how trees stagger in the wind
and roses never rest.

Wisteria and Jasmine twist on themselves.
Violet kneels to Hyacinth, who bows.

Narcissus winks, wondering what will
the lightheaded Willow say
of such slow dancing by Cypress.

Painters come outdoors with brushes.
I love their hands.

The birds sing suddenly and all at once.
The soul says Ya Hu, quietly.

A dove calls, Where, ku?
Soul, you will find it.

Now the roses show their breasts.
No one hides when the Friend arrives.

The Rose speaks openly to the Nightingale.
Notice how the Green Lily has several tongues
but still keeps her secret.

Now the Nightingale sings this love
that is so recklessly exposed, like you. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

Your love is the dominant color of my thoughts. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is. ~ Hermann Hesse

And in his button-hole he stuck a narcissus, hoping it would attract Mary's notice, so that he might have the delight of giving it her. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

I'm afraid of; that one day, I will only see more and more vanities in the world. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

I can feel you;
In my thoughts, in my words and in my deeds. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Heaven and stars at the feet of the lovers. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Men of dreams, the lovers and the poets, are better in most things than the men of my sort; the men of intellect. You take your being from your mothers. You live to the full: it is given you to love with your whole strength, to know and taste the whole of life. We thinkers, though often we seem to rule you, cannot live with half your joy and full reality. Ours is a thin and arid life, but the fullness of being is yours; yours the sap of the fruit, the garden of lovers, the joyous pleasaunces of beauty. Your home is the earth, ours the idea of it. Your danger is to be drowned in the world of sense, ours to gasp for breath in airless space. You are a poet, I a thinker. You sleep on your mother's breast, I watch in the wilderness. On me there shines the sun; on you the moon with all the stars. Your dreams are all of girls, mine of boys - ~ Hermann Hesse

I'll tell you a secret: Close your eyes and open your heart. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

War is the plague of mankind; I am and remain in solidarity with eternal peace. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

The war propaganda is a sly instrument,
and she seems to be very tricky, of course in a subtle manner, with her target-oriented agitations.
She operates brainwashing of the people.
I will give you the advice, to keep a distance, from these deceptiv irritations; she is a vicious tongue that wants to lead us with their statements, straight ahead into the abyss. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

We learn and experience ourselves only through suffering; everything else is humbug. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

A policy of peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine is the foundation of the tower, which will be built for the future; and visible from afar, the tower will be a non-violent symbol forever lasting peace. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

The first and the last steps on the ladder of life are the most insightful. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

I have written in my life many critical poems, but viewed in retrospect, they were merely a human harmless reflection, and not a true likeness of the real society of today. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Let me hear your voice; and I'll tell you who you are. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

If they spit on you,
collect their spittle to water your plants.

If they throw stones at you,
pick them up to adorn your garden.

If they call you the enemy, a liar and a narcissist.
Plant those very flowers: anemone, lily and narcissus.

Use their crap to cultivate your mind. ~ Kamand Kojouri

And think about the precise meaning of that term: a Narcissus is not proud. A proud man has disdain for other people, he undervalues them. The Narcissus overvalues them, because in every person's eyes he sees his own image, and wants to embellish it. So he takes nice care of all his mirrors. ~ Milan Kundera

Still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Narcissism, the unstable self, the fractured ego, Maud thought, who am I? A matrix for a susurration of texts and codes?It was both a pleasant and an unpleasant idea, this requirement that she think of herself as intermittent and partial. There was the question of the awkward body. The skin, the breath, the eyes, the hair, their history, which did seem to exist. ~ A.S. Byatt

Their mask reflects what you seek and that is what makes it so nice at first. A manufactured mirror of your dreams. ~ Tracy Malone

The morning will brighten the day, darkness gives way to light. The man awakens and sharpens his knife on the whetstone of success. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

With its proud wings of the eagle,
lighter than air; In harmony with the universe, and always be full-fledged. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

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

Very close, I want to hear your voice; and then I'll lose myself in the maelstrom of your eyes, your lips and your hair - you know it very well, you my beguiling siren and you rob me, mercilessly, of my thinking. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

You are my star in the days of darkness; and light up my heart at all times. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Night shift. Jamey raises his arm, and a hundred arms are raised. He smiles, with thousands of teeth. Jamey thinks of Narcissus bending to the pool. He thinks of how a swan on a calm lake is one with its reflection, and then lifting off, the bird divides from its self, and both parts becomes smaller and smaller. Division is more interesting than duplication, and an ax is a fascinating tool. It makes a fallen tree into wood that will keep your family warm. It does more than separate a whole into pieces; it changes the spirit of the thing, its use. He thinks about Elise checking her compact, and how he looks over her shoulder to catch her outlined eye in the mirror. Her eye, separated from the rest of her, floating. Normally he doesn't let his mind split into pieces, because it frightens him, but he's in a container here. He has so much time to think on the night shift. ~ Jardine Libaire

The first time I saw a narcissus pushing through ice and thriving, I thought it was perfect and wanted that kind of determination for myself. ~ Paula McLain

Sometimes we believe in miracles, and stars fall from the sky, as if the moon had poured his tears in gold. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Love is a red rose; it grows and grows out of the turmoil of the time. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

That said the conspirators:Tell us your secret and we will have betrayed you for a lifetime. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

She doesn't understand what she's asking, Jean-Claude said.
No, but she asks, and if we do not do it, we will always wonder. I would rather thy and fail than regret having never tried at all. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I believe ... that the petal of a flower or a tiny worm on the path says far more, contains far more than all the books in the library. One cannot say very much with mere letters and words. Sometimes I'll be writing a Greek letter, a theta or an omega, and tilt my pen just the slightest bit; suddenly the letter has a tail and becomes a fish; in a second it evokes all the streams and rivers of the world, all that is cool and humid, Homer's sea and the waters on which Saint Peter wandered; or becomes a bird, flaps its tail, shakes out its feathers, puffs itself up, laughs, flies away. You probably don't appreciate letters like that, very much, do you, Narcissus? But I say: with them God wrote the world. ~ Hermann Hesse

Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you - well, of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself an exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. ~ Oscar Wilde

Vulgarity is an old Narcissus who adores himself and applauds the common vulgarity. ~ Victor Hugo

In your carefree heart; I want to be your Memorial for a life time. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Across the river were two clouds in your eyes; and my kisses floated ascend from the heights of the sacred mountain -
there in the valley, where uncrowned hope of green fields and saffron came from flowers - delicate reverberations of rock walls we listened to our words of love. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

The creative side of the female operates imperceptibly: its province is the potential man. When its play is unrestricted the level of the race is raised. One can always gauge the level of a period by the status of its womankind. Something more than freedom and opportunity are here involved because Woman's true nature never expressed itself in demands. Like water, woman always finds her own level. And like water also, she mirrors faithfully all that passes in the soul of man. What is called truly feminine therefore is only the deceptive masquerade which the uncreative male blindly accepts as the real show. It is the flattering substitute which the thwarted female offers in self-defense. It is the homosexual game which Narcissus exacts. It is most flagrantly revealed when the partners are extremely masculine and feminine. It can be mimicked most successfully in the shadow play of the avowed homosexuals. It reaches its blind culmination in the Don Juan. Here the pursuit of the unattainable reaches the burlesk proportions of a Chaplinesque pursuit. The end is always the same: Narcissus drowning in his own image. ~ Henry Miller

And so we are seeds of love, scattered across the world, from the hands of the wind. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann