Hermann Hesse Quotes

“Merchant: 'So you have lived on the possessions of others?'Saddhartha: 'Apparently. The merchant also lives on the possession of others.'Merchant: 'Well spoken...”

“For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.”

“Good morning," said the little prince.Good morning," said the merchant.This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink.Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince.Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week."And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?"Anything you like..."As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.”

“And envy, envious of a time when the poet, the mystic, the scientist and the statesman were nobler than the merchant.”

“The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”

“If I was an eccentric old spinster in a Merchant Ivory movie, I'd want to share my lovely cottage with Holly and that's the truth. I'd do the cooking and leave the decorating to her, and we'd be inseparable.”

“The merchant increases the speed of the city. The musician slows it down. The merchant intensifies the urban stress, the noise, the chaos. The musician makes you slow down, find your center. This holds true in all cities and countries.”

“By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.”

“By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, but music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”

“Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am a beast, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are sham niggers, you, maniacs, fiends, misers. Merchant, you are a nigger; Judge, you are a nigger; General, you are a nigger; Emperor, old itch, you are a nigger: you have drank of the untaxed liquor of Satan’s still.”