Love can be begged, bought, or received as a gift, one can find it in the street, but one cannot steal it.

When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults.

The many-voiced song of the river echoed softly. Siddhartha looked into the river and saw many pictures in the flowing water. The river's voice was sorrowful. It sang with yearning and sadness, flowing towards its goal ... Siddhartha was now listening intently...to this song of a thousand voices ... then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om - Perfection ... From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny.

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.

I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.

All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?