18 quotes
I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.
No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.
Journey Within (1947)
Theatre supposes lives that are poor and agitated, a people searching in dreams for a refuge from thought.
Le Théâtre du peuple (1903)
Never do I hesitate to look squarely at the unexpected face that every passing hour unveils to us, and to sacrifice the false images of it formed in advance, however dear they may be.
Journey Within (1947)
Every man who is truly a man must learn to be alone in the midst of all others, and if need be against all others.
One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved.
A hundred facts testify to how great an extent the East was mingled with Hellenic thought during the second century of our era.
Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel (1931)
The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world.
Life of Ramakrishna (1929)
In all that I write, may her will, not mine, be done!
Journey Within (1947)
What I especially love in Lefebvre is this intimate alliance — which for me makes the true man — of pessimism of the intelligence, which penetrates every illusion, and optimism of the will.
Are you descendants of Goethe or of Attila the Hun?
I am not all that is. I am Life fighting Nothingness.
Jean-Christophe: Journey's End: The New Dawn (1912)
There is only one necessary condition for the emergence of a new theatre, that the stage and auditorium should be open to the masses, should be able to contain a people and the actions of a people.
Le Théâtre du peuple (1903)
Religious faith in the case of Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws; moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but they are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own ways.
Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel (1931)
In the great philosophy of Brahma, such violent turns of the scale are quite unknown. It embraces vast stretches of time, cycles of human ages, whose successive lives gravitate in concentric circles, and travel ever slowly towards the center.
Life of Ramakrishna (1929)
The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.
Life of Ramakrishna (1929)
The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest.
Let us return to our eagle's nest in the Himalayas. It is waiting for us, for it is ours, eaglets of Europe, we need not renounce any part of our real nature...whence we formerly took our flight.
Life of Ramakrishna (1929)