We only possess what we renounce; what we do not renounce escapes from us.

One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering.

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.

Religion is a form of nourishment. It is difficult to appreciate the flavor and food-value of something one has never eaten.

You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.

Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.

Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right through to the soul. . . . When the feeling for beauty happens to be associated with the sight of some human being, the transference of love is made possible, at any rate in an illusory manner. But it is all the beauty of the world, it is universal beauty, for which we yearn.