Purity

"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."

"To cease from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind yourself, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas."

"Men and women grow older in this world of ours, and as the years advance they change. Of all the changes that they undergo those of their moral natures are the most painful to watch. The boy changes into the man, and there is something lost which never seems to come back again. It is like the first glow of the morning that passes away — like the bloom on the blossom that never is restored. Your grown-up boy is wise in bad things which he used to know nothing about. His life no longer sounds with a perfectly clear ring, or shines with a perfectly white lustre. He is no longer unspotted. ...The worst thing about all this staining power of the world is the way in which we come to think of it as inevitable. ... It is not true. ... Social life is lighted up with the lustre of the white, unstained robes of many a pure man or woman who walks through its very midst. ... When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; when he flaunts his unscrupulousness, and his cynicism and his disbelief and his hard-heartedness in your face as the signs and badges of his superiority; when to be innocent and unsuspicious and sensitive seems to be ridiculous and weak; when it is reputable to show that we are men of the world by exhibiting the stains that the world has left upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, then we understand how flagrant is the danger; then we see how hard it must be to keep ourselves unspotted from the world."

"θρησκεία καθαρὰ καὶ ἀμίαντος παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ καὶ Πατρὶ αὕτη ἐστίν, ἐπισκέπτεσθαι ὀρφανοὺς καὶ χήρας ἐν τῇ θλίψει αὐτῶν, ἄσπιλον ἑαυτὸν τηρεῖν ἀπὸ τοῦ κόσμου."

"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals."

"Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life."

"Quell' onda, che ruina Dalla pendice alpina, Balza, si frange, e mormora Ma limpida si fa."

"Qual diverrà quel fiume, Nel lungo suo cammino, Se al fonte ancor vicino É torbido così?"

"Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood."

"One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure."

"Eyes pure and broad like the blue lotus; mind pure, steeped in meditations; for pure deeds long accumulated, boundless in fame, your quietude guides the assembly-thus we bow our heads."

"Have you not seen those who claim themselves to be pure? Rather, Allah purifies whom He wills, and injustice is not done to them, (even) as much as a thread (inside a date seed)."

"Meditation and worship helps to purify the mind. Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind. A corrupted mind can't recognize the beauty of the world. A pure mind perceives it. A pure mind is the source of happiness."

"Whiter than new snow on a raven's back."

"I am too pure for you or anyone."

"The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise. ... He makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear that is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right. ... For this reason, power and profit cannot sway him, the masses cannot shift him, and nothing in the world can shake him."

"Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source."

"Unto the pure all things are pure."

"Puhtaus meitä erottaa, saasta yhdistää. (Samuli Paronen) (SSSK)"