“All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands—but if we strive to take, it perpetually eludes us.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“It is not as if the artist were a special kind of person; every person is a special kind of artist.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Industry without art is brutality.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“No doubt the root idea behind all of these dances is more or less one and the same, the manifestation of primal rhythmic energy. Whatever the origins of Shiva's dance, it became in time the clearest image of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“The more superficially one studies Buddhism, the more it seems to differ from the Brahmanism in which it originated; the more profound our study, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish Buddhism from Brahmanism, or to say in what respects, if any, Buddhism is really unorthodox.”

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“To have lost the art of thinking in images is precisely to have lost the proper linguistic of metaphysics and to have descended to the verbal logic of 'philosophy.'”

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“What the secular mind does is to assert that we (symbolists) are reading meaning into things that originally had none: our assertion is that they are reading out the meaning. The proof of our contention lies in the perfection, consistency and universality of the pattern in which these meanings are united.”

from Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (1941)

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“It is equally surprising that so many scholars, meeting with some universal doctrine in a given context, so often think of it as a local peculiarity.”

from Guardians of the Sun-Door​

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“The opposition of religion to folklore is often a kind of rivalry set up as between a new dispensation and an older tradition, the gods of the older cult becoming the evil spirits of the newer”

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“The vocation—whether it be that of the farmer or the architect—is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.”

from Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (1941)

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“Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.”

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“It is the natural instinct of a child to work from within outwards; 'First I think, and then I draw my think.' What wasted efforts we make to teach the child to stop thinking, and only to observe!”

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“Beauty is the attractive power of perfection”

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“The man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman.”

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“The most awkward means are adequate to the communication of authentic experience, and the finest words no compensation for lack of it.”

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“It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value...”

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“Puritanism consists in a desire to impose the natural asceticism of age upon the young, and this position is largely founded on the untenable theories of an absolute ethic and an only true theology.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Buddhist doctrine is a medicine solely directed to save the individual from burning, not in a future hell, but in the present fire of his own thirst... Buddhists never directly attempted to organize human society, thinking the wise man should leave the dark state of life in the world”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“the great Buddhist Emperor Ashoka is an example of the effect of Buddhist teaching upon character and policy... Quoting 'All men are my children,' he ordered the establishment of hospitals, that shade and fruit trees should be planted by the high roads, that animals should not be killed for his table, that all animate beings should have security, self-control, peace of mind, and joyousness”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Philosophy is the key to the map of life by which are set forth the meaning of life and the means of attaining its goal... Philosophy can only be known to those who are alike disinterested and free from care”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Hindus grasped more firmly than others the fundamental meaning and purpose of life and more deliberately than others organized society with a view to the attainment of the fruit of life”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“The building of that city anew—the 'City of the gods'—is the constant task of civilization... to build on the foundations of the religion of Eternity.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“If it is decided that every man's voice is to count equally in the councils of the nation, it follows naturally that the voice of those who think must be drowned by that of those who do not think and have no leisure.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Where modern Industrialism prevails... commerce settles on every tree and there must be felt continual anxiety about a bare subsistence; the victim of Industry must confine his thoughts to the subject of tomorrow's food for himself and his family”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Modern medicine lays greater stress on cure than on prevention, i.e., endeavors to protect against unnatural conditions rather than to change the social environment.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“If we regard the world as a family of nations—equally the gospel of India, of Jesus and of Blake, Lao Tzu and Rumi—... a constant intuition of the unity of all life, and the instinctive and ineradicable conviction that the recognition of this unity is the highest good and the uttermost freedom”

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“It is this radiance in women, more than any other quality, that urges men to every sort of heroism, be it martial or poetic... Woman possesses the power of perpetually creating in man the qualities she desires, and this is for her an infinitely grater power than the possession of those special qualities could ever confer upon her directly.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“Some men remain irresponsible, self-assertive, uncontrolled, inept to their last day; others from their youth are serious, self-controlled, talented, and friendly... it is this variation of temperament or inheritance which constitutes the natural inequality of men, an inequality that is too often ignored in the theories of Western democracy.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“The key to education is to be found in personality. There should be no teacher for whom teaching is less than a vocation, and no teacher should impart his knowledge to a pupil until he finds the pupil ready to receive it.”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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“the social change from co-operation to competition is spoken of as progress... [but] we are not all deceived by the illusion of progress... 'the object of human life is not to waste it in a feverish anxiety and race after physical objects and comforts, but to use it in developing the mental, moral, and spiritual powers latent in man' (Basu)”

from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

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