“Every single ancient wisdom and religion will tell you the same thing – don’t live entirely for yourself, live for other people. Don’t get stuck inside your own ego, because it will become a prison in no time flat.”

the distinction between rich nations and poor nations is one of the great dominant political and international themes of our century.

The modern world is not given to uncritical admiration. It expects its idols to have feet of clay and can be reasonably sure that the press and camera will report their exact dimensions.

There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done.

I have the impression that when we talk so confidently of liberty, we are unaware of the awful … servitude of poverty when means are so small that there is literally no choice at all.

Faith will not be restored in the West because people believe it to be useful. It will return only when they find that it is true.

The gaps in power, the gaps in wealth, the gaps in ideology which hold the nations apart also make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation.

the wealthy white western minority of the world could not hope to prosper if most of the rest of mankind were foundering in hopeless poverty. Islands of plenty in a vast ocean of misery never have been a good recipe for commercial success.

It is a truism that one person who wants something is a hundred times stronger than a hundred who want to be left alone.

We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.

Our physical unity has gone far ahead of our moral unity.

If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all.

Business shouldn’t be like sports, separating the men from the women.

The raw material from which social institutions are fashioned is always more or less recalcitrant and any human society will tend to produce a caricature of itself.

Jews were the first to believe that history itself has meaning and that progress, not repetition, is the law of life.

To me, one of the proofs that there is a moral governance in the universe is the fact that when people and governments work intelligently and far-sightedly for the good of others, they achieve their own prosperity, too.

Fear can indeed be the beginning of wisdom.

Eradicate self-justification. Then alone can you annihilate your ego.

Life cannot be against you, for you are Life itself. Life can only seem to go against the ego’s projections, which are rarely the truth.

Men tend to lie when it comes to sexual conquests. You should hear some of the ego-driven lies my friends have told me: ‘Swear to God, man – the hooker gave the money back.’

You can never really know what a guru is as long as you are imprisoned by your own thoughts and circular ego.

Renunciation means death of false ego.

Even when Krishna gives you strength, maya will delude you to think it is your strength.

When you have an ego, you are limited to your own strengths and weaknesses. But if you are totally surrendered to God, nothing is impossible for you.

The dirty wax of egotism accumulated in the heart prevents us from clearly hearing the Lord’s voice within. A guru, with the stick of knowledge, cleans our hearts. It’s really ugly to see what may come out, but by following patiently, we keep cleaning.