Great Throughts Treasury

"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."

"It is the heart that makes the critic, not the nose."

"Philosophy has been called the knowledge of our knowledge of our ignorance, or in the language of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge."

"Soon the child learns that there are strangers, and ceases to be a child. "

"Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast."

"There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason; but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world — how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense."

"Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? He from whom all this great creation came, Whether his will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it — or perchance even He knows not."

"If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its first apostles."

"Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them. I give but one specimen, the 129th hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda. It is a hymn which long ago attracted the attention of that eminent scholar H. T. Colebrooke, and of which, by the kind assistance of a friend, I am enabled to offer a metrical translation. In judging it we should hear in mind that it was not written by a gnostic or by a pantheistic philosopher, but by a poet who felt all these doubts and problems as his own, without any wish to convince or to startle, only uttering what had been weighing on his mind, just as later poets would sing the doubts and sorrows of their heart. Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? Was it the water's fathomles abyss? There was not death — yet was there naught immortal, There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless by itself, Other than It there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound — an ocean without light — The germ that still lay covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Then first came love upon it, the new spring Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned, Pondering, this bond between created things And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven? Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose — Nature below, and power and will above — Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here, Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves came later into being — Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? He from whom all this great creation came, Whether his will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it — or perchance even He knows not."

"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."

"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love."

"Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who can explain them!"

"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 believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first time."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a butterfly, and the butterfly dust?"

"If a traveler does not meet with one who is his better or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool."

"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."

"It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others."

"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."

"Of these years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have advanced and only grown older."

"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."

"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."

"No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up."

"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?"

"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."

"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?"

"Without a belief in personal immortality religion is like an arch resting on one pillar, or like a bridge ending in an abyss."

"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."

"While the river of life glides along smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank seems to change."

"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."