Max Muller Quotes

The person who knows only one religion does not know any religion.

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.

A man is not learned because he talks much; he who is patient, free from hatred and fear, he is called learned.

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.

The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up.

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.

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.

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.

It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool.

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

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.

There is no book in the world that is so thrilling, stirring and inspiring as the Upanishads.

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.

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

Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast.

Samskrit is the greatest language of the world.

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.

The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise who control their mind, are indeed well controlled.

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.

Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.

Hunger is the worst of diseases, the body the greatest of pains; if one knows this truly, that is Nirv?na, the highest happiness.

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

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!

The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years.

Even in heavenly pleasures he finds no satisfaction, the disciple who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires.