Quotes from Gustav Meyrink

I have not let myself be stultified by science, whose highest goal is to furnish a 'waiting room', which it would be best to tear down.

I never trust mere appearance - one's senses offer such an insecure guarantee of abstract perception. - What's The Use of White Dog Shit?

The struggle for immortality is a battle for the sceptre against the ghosts and sounds within us.

The soul is not a single unity; that is what it is destined to become, and that is what we call 'immortality'. Your soul is still composed of many 'selves', just as a colony of ants is composed of many single ants. You bear within you the spiritual remains of many thousand ancestors, the heads of your line.

The key to the art of forgetting belongs to our brothers who follow the Path of Death; but you have been made pregnant by the Spirit of Life.

Each thing in earth is nothing but an eternal symbol clothed in dust.

I could sense that there are things, incomprehensible things, which are yoked together and race along side by side like blind horses, not knowing where their course is taking them.

Even if I were to succeed in forcing my way into that locked 'room', would that not just mean I would once again fall prey to the ghosts that have been locked away in it?

Das Weib, die allgegenwärtige Wirklichkeit, brennt sich uns nackt ins Blut, und wo wir mit ihr kämpfen müssen, da ziehen wir sie am besten erst recht nackt aus, in der Tat oder Vorstellung, so gut wir eben können

un om intrat sub st?pânirea propriului s?u suflet; È™i-l ducea prin locurile s?lbatece ale vieÈ›ii, în abisuri È™i-n ascuÈ›iÈ™ul sâncilor, sus, spre culmile ninse ale unei lumi neumblate.

Nu, nu m? mai las batjocorit, nu mai vreau s? fiu juc?ria unei soarte incerte, f?r? nici o È›int?, care m? înal?? È™i m? împinge iar? în mocirl?, nu cumva s? nu înÈ›eleg deÈ™ert?ciunea a tot ce-i p?mântesc. Ca È™i cum n-o È™tiam demult - orice copil o È™tie, pân? È™i câinele de pe strad?!

Freude, die einen Anlaß braucht, ist nicht Freude, sondern Vergnügen.

Celý život není nic jiného než otázky, které dostaly tvar a které v sobÄ› nesou zárodek odpovÄ›dí - a není nic než odpovÄ›di, které jsou obt?žkány otázkami. Kdo v nÄ›m vidí nÄ›co jiného, je blázen.

My lidé jsme ne?istí, a ?asto je zapotÃ…â"¢ebí dlouhého postu a bdÄ›ní, než porozumíme Å¡epotu své duÅ¡e.

Life is generous; at every instant it gives us a new beginning. Every second we are confronted by the question: "Who am I?" We do not ask it, and this is why we do not find the beginning

Be awake in all that you do! Do not think you are already awake. No: you are asleep and dreaming. Be firm, collect yourself, and briefly behold the sensation that runs through your body: "NOW I AM AWAKE!

El cuerpo del hombre es la casa donde residen sus antepasados muertos

The ice-cold ritual baths of the Jews and Brahmins; the vigils of Buddha's disciples and of the Christian ascetics; the torments of Indian fakirs to keep from falling asleep—these are all nothing but external, crystallized rituals, which like broken columns bear witness to the seeker: "Here, very long ago, stood a mysterious temple dedicated to awakening.

Wherever I looked, there was nothing but drab despair around me, and I had a soul to match, all mangled and torn.

If you want to overcome death itself, whose armor is sleep, dream, and dullness, you must climb from one step of awakening to the next. Imagine: the lowest step of this heavenly ladder is called "genius." What name shall we then give to the highest ones? They remain unknown to the multitudes and are considered to be legend

In every name there is a hidden force and when we repeat that name over and over we draw into our blood that spiritual force, which in time, finally transforms our whole body.

Everybody could attain this if he had the key. The key consists simply in becoming aware of one's "form of the Self or of one's skin, even though one may be asleep, in discovering the narrow crack through which consciousness slips between waking and deep sleep.

Our path leads to the threshold of maturity. Once you arrive at it, you are also worthy of receiving that gift. In either case, you will have become a phoenix: it is up to you to get there by force.

Fiecare lucru de pe pamant nu e decat simbolul etern invesmantat in colb.