Not by the elimination of the spiritually weak (as unfit to survive), but rather by the elimination of the spiritually strong (as needing no longer to survive) is virtue in this world increased.
Q. Do you try patent medicines?
A: Yes, I try them first on my wife. And if they suit her, I know they will suit me. “Experience to the barber, and the cut to the merchant.”
* * * *
Warm your body by healthful exercise, not by covering over a stove.
Warm your spirit by performing independently noble deeds, not by ignobly seeking the sympathy of fellows who are no better than yourself.
* * * *
You must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.
* * * *
Shall we work only for the bribe of Success?
Whatever is and is not ashamed to be is good,
* * * *
Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God.
In your mind must be a liquor which will dissolve the world whenever it is dropped in it.
There is no universal solvent but this, and all things together cannot saturate it.
It will hold the universe in solution and yet be as translucent as ever.
* * * *
It requires more effort to fall than to rise.
* * * *
Let thy hair grow and talk Punjabi,
That is all that makes a Sikh.
* * * *
Those acts only which are not done with a sense of duty (or under compulsion) bring me joy.
Ifs, But’s, and And’s are always links in our thought-fetters.
Concentration is poise of mind rather than forced action.
Repose of spirit is absolutely essential to the highest expression of power.
* * * *
We should neither dream through the day, nor wake through the night. In both these ways we scatter force I cannot think it, I shall sink in it.
Christ is the realization of our Self as the Self of all (Isvar).
It is after passing through that that we merge into Nirvan Brahma.
What is “life”? A series of interruptions.
* * * *
What is gained in dollars is lost in time, rich in money and poor in life.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks.
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
If Truth were dependent upon mortal demonstration for its credit, it would long since have suffered bankruptcy.
* * * *
Eagerness and indolence are both obstructive and result in suffering.
Nothing can come to us except we draw it.
Nothing can stay when we let go.
Nothing can go till it has fulfilled its purpose.
* * * *
All the doors of life are inscribed “Pull”. They open inward toward the individual himself; and yet we often read amiss and begin to “Push”.
The beautiful Joseph says to his apologising brothers; “You did not throw me into the well, The Merciful God in order to exalt me in Egypt made instruments of my brothers.”
* * * *
As to homeless, heartless R (Rama), I remember he had a heart once and a good one too, but dear me I lo! It is lost. Just dropped it.
Baron Rothschild in Paris, criticised by a friend about his dress being not nice:
Nobody knows me here, what does it matter?
Being criticised in London again:
What matters it: Everybody knows me here,
* * * *
A poor girl complimented an awfully rich neighbour girl on her ornaments, dress, and rich dinners.
Rich girl: Take all these away.
Dressing and undressing, parties, dinner, companies.
Dances for my mamma, I for the nurses.
Oh! I weep for the pleasure of being taken in mamma’s lap like you and being kissed.
* * * *
A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.
The hero is not fed on sweets.
Daily his own heart he eats – Emerson
A rich man (like Mahmud of Ghazni) groans and cries at his deathbed: “Oh! All my gold is left behind.”
A bystander answers: “Why bemoan the gold, even if you had taken it to the other world, it was simply to melt away in the heat”
* * * *
“Nerve us with incessant affirmatives.
Do not bark against the bad but chant the beauties
Of the good” – Emerson.
Love might hope where reason would despair.
Jean Paul Richter:
“I live my family more than myself, country more than family and world more than country”.
A fair maid often forgets that beauty unadorned is adorned the most.
No one took matches from Europe, who did not bring matches in his pocket,
I cannot excite your interest unless I voice what is already in you. No new ideas can be imparted.
A little dynamite from within destroys the whole superstructure which held it.
* * * *
Growing old is a bad habit.
Do they criticise me? No, only the things said or the clothes. Why should I identify myself more with the clothes than with the critics?
* * * *
Man is a moral being and cares what people think of him.
The desire to be well thought of by one’s fellows ruins the veracity of character. This is the foundation of hypocritical society. .
The additional pressure that is brought to bear upon him by his desiring to please others who may have abnormal or perverted desires leads him into many things he would otherwise desire not to do.
Drinking habits are always induced by misdirected Sympathy.
* * * *
He who runs can read that (if not blind). Desire for anything is increased by prohibition or condemnation.
* * * *
Evil to him who evil thinks.
* * * *
Give as much freedom to everyone and everything as you do to the air or sunshine.