Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.

War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy.

The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.