“The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.”

Muhammadan law in its relation to women, is a pattern to European law. Look back to the history of Islam, and you will find that women have often taken leading places – on the throne, in the battle-field, in politics, in literature, poetry, etc.

The highest Hindu intellectual training was based on the practice of yoga, and produced, as its fruit, those marvellous philosophical systems, the six Darshanas and the Brahma Sutras, which are still the delight of scholars and the inspiration of occultists and mystics.

There is a charm in making a stew, to the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the mixture.

When a man, a woman, see their little daily tasks as integral portions of the one great work, they are no longer drudges but co-workers with God.

Every person, every race, every nation, has its own particular keynote which it brings to the general chord of life and of humanity.

The world, with all its beauty, its happiness and suffering, its joys and pains, is planned with the utmost ingenuity, in order that the powers of the Self may be shown forth in manifestation.

No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and they who have suffered are able to save.

There is much, of course, in the exclusive claims of Christianity which make it hostile to other faiths.

Strange indeed would it be if all the space around us be empty, mere waste void, and the inhabitants of Earth the only forms in which intelligence could clothe itself.

Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and – as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis – emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness.

Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.

No durable things are built on violent passion. Nature grows her plants in silence and in darkness, and only when they have become strong do they put their heads above the ground.

Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.

You should always take a religion at its best and not at its worst, from its highest teachings and not from the lowest practices of some of its adherents.

Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

Man peoples his current living space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions.

Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.

The only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.

The earth was probably born by accident; but, in accordance with one of the most general laws of evolution, scarcely had this accident happened than it was immediately made use of and recast into something naturally directed.

I have always had this basic biological question in terms of evolution, if the drive to evolution is to like survive.

To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.

Optimization hinders evolution.

Optimization hinders evolution.