Best 65 quotes of Max Muller on MyQuotes

All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for,-real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope.

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.

And then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when all men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling rises in the breast.

An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent.

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.

Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.

Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who can explain them!

Christianity is a missionary religion, converting, advancing, aggressive, encompassing the world; a non-missionary church is in the bands of death.

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

Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.

For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.

He in whom all this is destroyed, and taken out with the very root, he, when freed from hatred and wise, is called respectable.

He who, by causing pain to others, wishes to obtain pleasure for himself, he, entangled in the bonds of hatred, will never be free from hatred.

He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with all other beings, he indeed is an ascetic.

He who wishes to put on the yellow dress without having cleansed himself from sin, who disregards temperance and truth, is unworthy of the yellow dress.

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!

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

I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first time.

If an earnest person has roused himself, if he is not forgetful, if his deeds are pure, if he acts with consideration, if he restrains himself, and lives according to law,then his glory will increase.

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 have declared again and again that if I say Aryans, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language. In that sense, and in that sense only, do I say that even the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians. To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar.

I know well there is no comfort for this pain of parting. The wound always remains, but one learns to bear the pain, and learns to thank God for what he gave. For the beautiful memories of the past, and the yet more beautiful hope for the future.

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.

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.

Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a butterfly, and the butterfly dust?

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.

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

It is the heart that makes the critic, not the nose.

It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others.

I was shortly again at the castle, and the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children, the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had known each other for years.

I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.

Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast.

No one who has not examined patiently and honestly the other religions of the world can know what Christianity really is, or can join with such truth and sincerity in the words of St. Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers.

Of these years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have advanced and only grown older.

Samskrit is the greatest language of the world.

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

That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face.

That is the returning to God which in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases.

The evil-doer mourns in the next; he mourns in both. He mourns and suffers when he sees the evil of his own work.

The evil done by oneself, self-begotten, self-bred, crushes the foolish, as a diamond breaks a precious stone.

The gospel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpretation of all revelation, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world.

The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men.

The morning hour has gold at the mouth.

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

There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man.

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.

The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up.

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.

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.