“Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.”

The Hindus have to learn a little bit of materialism from the West and teach them a little bit of spirituality.

Whatever you believe, that you will be. If you believe yourselves to be sages, sages you will be tomorrow. There is nothing to obstruct you.

Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind.

We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.

Mind you, there is no value in learning. You are all mistaken in learning. The only value of knowledge is in the strengthening, the disciplining, of the mind.

No one is ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion, which arouses the internal teacher, who helps us to understand things.

Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.

Eka-Nishtha or devotion to one ideal is absolutely necessary for the beginner in the practice of religious devotion.

Why should a Man be Moral? Because this strengthens his will.

Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.

Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world.

Know that all sins and all evils can be summed up in that one word, weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil doing; it is weakness that makes men injure others; it is weakness that makes them manifest what they are not in reality. Let them know what they really are.

The help which tends to make us spiritually strong is the highest help, next to it comes intellectual help and after that comes physical help.

As soon as we react, we become slaves. A man blames me, and I immediately react in the form of anger. A little vibration which he created made me a slave.

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, and fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.

We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light.

I shed skin after skin, seeking my true colors, expecting a rainbow or a stripe of black, but all I get are maps of red. We are all human underneath.

The smaller your inner circle is, the less issues you have.

Don’t expect from others. Put in your own work.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

Live your hopes without expectations.

How could you expect to stay happy after hurting an innocent soul.

So many women around the world in so many different career paths and places are expected to be perfect and I know that it sounds cliché, but none of us are.

I have always wished someone to look right through all my struggles without me having to utter a word.