Whoever knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that he who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole soul; with all his strength and with all his will.Collection: Strength
I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first time.Collection: Romantic
Of these years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have advanced and only grown older.Collection: Sad
The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up.Collection: Love
I spend my happiest hours in reading Vedantic books. They are to me like the light of the morning, like the pure air of the mountains - so simple, so true, if once understood.Collection: Morning
A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.Collection: Love
Thus one memory follows another until the waves dash together over our heads, and a deep sigh swells the breast, which warns us that we have forgotten to breathe in the midst of these pure thoughts.
How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do, and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity!
I was shortly again at the castle, and the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children, the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had known each other for years.
Would not the child's heart break in despair when the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like the soft reflection of divine light and love?
It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others.
Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers.
Yes, now I understood for the first time that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and that it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs, and buds to the light.
And then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when all men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling rises in the breast.
Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.
I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.
That is the returning to God which in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases.
The first pages of memory are like the old family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to grow clear and legible.
What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection from the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might almost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or the Creator without the creature?
While the river of life glides along smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank seems to change.
The person who knows only one religion does not know any religion.Collection: Doe
Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language, or religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive art or primitive science, everywhere, you have to go to India, whether you like it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India, and in India only.Collection: Art
The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education of the human race to which we can find no parallel anywhere else.Collection: Race
A man is not learned because he talks much; he who is patient, free from hatred and fear, he is called learned.Collection: Men
In the history of the world the Vedas fill a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself for his ancestors for his intellectual development a study of the Vedic literature is indeed indispensable.Collection: Intellectual
If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.Collection: Sky
It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool.Collection: Fool
In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries.Collection: Truth
There is no book in the world that is so thrilling, stirring and inspiring as the Upanishads.Collection: Book
The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind; but the odor of good people travels; even against the wind: a good man pervades every place.Collection: Flower
Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast.Collection: Men
Hunger is the worst of diseases, the body the greatest of pains; if one knows this truly, that is Nirv?na, the highest happiness.Collection: Pain
The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise who control their mind, are indeed well controlled.Collection: Wise
As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again.Collection: Pain
Samskrit is the greatest language of the world.Collection: World
Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.Collection: Hatred
And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.Collection: Race
The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men.Collection: Cutting
There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man.Collection: Children
Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.Collection: Hurtful
It is the heart that makes the critic, not the nose.Collection: Heart
If an earnest person has roused himself, if he is not forgetful, if his deeds are pure, if he acts with consideration, if he restrains himself, and lives according to law,then his glory will increase.Collection: Law
An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent.Collection: Men
For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.Collection: Horse
The gospel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpretation of all revelation, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world.Collection: Philosophy
That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face.Collection: Men
When the evil deed, after it has become known, brings sorrow to the fool, then it destroys his bright lot, nay, it cleaves his head.Collection: Evil