Why is it that we three hundred and thirty millions of people have been ruled for the last one thousand years by any and every handful of foreigners who chose to walk over our prostrate bodies? Because they had faith in themselves and we had not.
Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work - this is the only way. Go on; remember - patience and purity and courage and steady work. . . . So long as you are pure, and true to your principles, you will never fail.
Everything which has name and form must die. If there are heavens with forms, these heavens must vanish in course of time; they may last millions of years, but there must come a time when they will have to go.
You see, no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge-even in a boy it is so-and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher.
In every man and in every animal, however weak or wicked, great or small, resides the same omnipresent, omniscient soul. The difference is not in the soul, but in the manifestation. Between me and the smallest animal, the difference is only in manifestation, but as a principle he is the same as I am, he is my brother, he has the same soul as I have. This is the greatest principle that India has preached.
Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.
Drama is the most difficult of all arts. In it two things are to be satisfied - first, the ears, and second, the eyes. To paint a scene, if one thing be painted, it is easy enough; but to paint different things and yet to keep up the central interest is very difficult. Another difficult thing is stage - management, that is, combining different things in such a manner as to keep the central interest intact.
The following story is one which he related recently regarding the practice of fault - finding among creeds: A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. . . .
There is no power on earth which can be kept long confined within a narrow limit. It cannot be kept compressed too long to allow of expansion at a subsequent period.
In the primal state before any manifestation, when there was no motion but perfect balance, this Prakriti was indestructible, because decomposition or death comes from instability or change.
Nothing is gained except by sacrifice.... Do not degrade it to the level of the brutes.... Make yourselves decent men! ... Be chaste and pure! ... There is no other way. Did Christ find any other way?