“A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface, and you will feel your true being within, separate from them, observing but not carried away.”

Arise, transcend Thyself, Thou art man and the whole nature of man Is to become more than himself.

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection.

Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one’s ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness.

The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

The only work that spiritually purifies us is that which is done without personal motives.

Detachment is the beginning of mastery.

Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.

Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured.

The Person is a bubble on Time’s sea.

Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go to its own depths and listen.

Material things are not to be despised-without them there can be no manifestation in the material world.

Genius discovers a system; average talent stereotypes it till it is shattered by fresh genius.

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others.

The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the door of the spirit.

To doubt the experience is to discourage it. Let it be developed, see what is in it.

Sit in meditation ! But do not think ! Look only at your mind ! You will see thoughts coming into it ! Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.

Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.

In college I didn’t dress up every day, for class or stuff like that, but when it came time to do certain things I’d dress up for sure.

If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.

Roll up your sleeves, set your mind to making history, and wage such a fight for liberty that the whole world will respect our sex.

All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

Why do we spend years using up our bodies to nurture our minds with experience and find our minds turning then to our exhausted bodies for solace?

I think the greatest lesson I have just recently learned is how powerful the mind is, informing our decision making unknowingly.

Once I realized that the only thing I can actually control in this life is my own mind, how I choose to react, feel, and perceive, I felt immediately liberated.