Toward seven o'clock every morning, I leave my study and step Out on the bright terrace; the sun already burns resplendent Between the shadows of the fig tree, makes the low wall of coarse Granite warm to the touch. Here my tools lie ready and waiting, Each one an intimate, an ally: the round basket for weeds: The zappetta, the small hoe with a short haft . . . There's a rake here as well, at at times a mattock and spade, Or two watering cans filled with water warmed by the sun. With my basket and small hoe in hand, facing the sun, I Go out for my morning walk.

Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

...Haller's sickness of the soul, as I now know, is not the eccentricity of a single individual, but the sickness of the times themselves, the neurosis of that generation to which Haller belongs, a sickness, it seems, that by no means attacks the weak and worthless only but, rather, precisely those who are strongest in spirit and richest in gifts.

Siddhartha has one single goal-to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow-to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought-that was his goal.

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.

Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long.