All Quotes

"Every Western Theosophist should learn and remember, especially those of them who would be our followers—that in our Brotherhood, all personalities sink into one idea—abstract right and absolute practical justice for all. And that, though we may not say with the Christians, return good for evil—we repeat with Confucius— return good for good, for evil—justice."

"China's Communist leaders, while officially genuflecting to Maoist ideology, are finding something of value in folk religion and even Confucianism―so reviled by the founders of the People's Republic. It turns out that old virtues like honesty, filial obedience, and respect for hierarchy have their uses in the modern age."

"The Lord Maitreya,... took up the office of Bodhisattva when the Lord Gautama laid it down, and since then He has made many efforts for the promotion of Religion. One of His first steps on assuming office was to take advantage of the tremendous magnetism generated in the world by the presence of the Buddha, to arrange that great Teachers should simultaneously appear in many different parts of the earth; so that within a comparatively short space of time we find not only the Buddha Himself, Shri Shankaracharya and Mahavira in India, but also Mithra in Persia, Laotse and Confucius in China, and Pythagoras in ancient Greece. p. 296"

"Now let us imagine the situation of Moses if he had not resisted evil and had allowed the worst and crudest elements to destroy the best—the one which was able to assimilate the ideas of morality and order. What would have happened to his task? His duty as a leader and an earthly lawgiver was to protect his people and to maintain order. Therefore, the resistance to evil was basically necessary. All teachings of antiquity declare active resistance to evil. Thus, the well-known sage and lawgiver of China, Confucius, used to say, "God for good, but for evil—justice.""

"I remember a story about the great Confucius. Once he was very ill, and his friends, thinking that he was about to die prompted him to say his prayers. The sage smiled and said, "My prayer started long ago." And indeed, was not all his life an unceasing service to the Great Ideal, which is the true prayer to the Highest?"

"Confucius... said that the one who does not react to slander, which is slowly absorbed by the brain, nor to insults, which, like sores, injure the body, that one verily can be called wise; he who takes no notice of either slander or insults can be called far-sighted."

"I must confess that I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy. Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional; it is quite as reliable in situations for which no precedent has been provided. And it is not confined to one class; it exists even in the humblest coolie. It is humiliating to watch the brutal insolence of white men received by the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot demean itself to answer rudeness with rudeness. Europeans often regard this as weakness, but it is really strength, the strength by which the Chinese have hitherto conquered all their conquerors."

"Our Master's teaching simply amounts to this: 'loyalty to one's self and charity to one's neighbours.'"

"Somebody asked Confucious once, one of his students; they said "What happens, Master Kong," which was his real name, "when we die?" He said, "Why do you ask about something we know nothing about, when you don't even ask about life, which we do have to deal with?""

"Confucianism stood for a rationalized social order through the ethical approach, based on personal cultivation. It aimed at political order by laying the basis for it in a moral order, and it sought political harmony by trying to achieve the moral harmony in man himself. Thus its most curious characteristic was the abolition of the distinction between politics and ethics."

"Confucius was not so much a philosopher as a proto-ideologist: what interested him was not metaphysical Truths but rather a harmonious social order within which individuals could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what one is tempted to call the elementary scene of ideology, its zero-level, which consists in asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition."

"Coningsby (1844)"

"Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845)."

"Cathedral High Mass. Clouds of incense and one of Mozart's sublimest masses by an orchestra before which San Carlo might grow pale. The effect inconceivably grand. The host raised, and I flung myself on the ground."

"Head of Christ by Morales, exactly as in the description in the pseudo letter of the Roman Proconsul. Morales well entitled to his surname of Divino... [T]he auburn locks seem only prevented from growing over the countenance by the moiety of the star which forms the glory: everything which can even be conceived as necessary to the formation of a face of perfect beauty, but nothing earthly in the appearance. You could not mistake the head for an Apollo or an Adonis. The eyes, beaming with human beauty, are nevertheless bright with the effulgence of celestial light, and fixed upon no particular object. They seem looking on the world. The nose is exquisitely formed, and the flesh tints seem immortal."

"[I]n speaking of Italy, romance has omitted for once to exaggerate."

"I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I wish more sympathy had been shown on both sides towards the Chartists... I am not ashamed to say that I sympathise with millions of my fellow-subjects."

"Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings."

"Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world."

"I declare that England, with all her imperfections, is worth all the world together, and I hope it is not misanthropy when I feel that I love lakes and mountains better than courts and cities, and trees better than men."

"I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up."

"The microcosm of a public school."

"The Services in war time are fit only for desperadoes but, in peace, are fit only for fools."

"Beware of endeavouring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds."

"I hate definitions."

"Fear makes us feel our humanity."

"There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour."

"Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books."

"Variety is the mother of Enjoyment."

"There is moderation even in excess."

"In politics nothing is contemptible."

"Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter."

"I repeat that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist."

"Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life."

"A man's fate is his own temper."

"A consistent man believes in Destiny — a capricious man in Chance."

"Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."

"The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair."

"To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them."

"For a week I was in a scene equal to anything in the Arabian Nights—such processions, such dresses, such corteges of horsemen, such caravans of camels. Then the delight of being made much of by a man who was daily decapitating half the Province. Every morning we paid visits, attended reviews, and crammed ourselves with sweetmeats; every evening dancers and singers were sent to our quarters by the Vizier or some Pasha."

"I am quite a Turk, wear a turban, smoke a pipe six feet long, and squat on a divan. Mehemet Pasha told me that he did not think I was an Englishman because I walked so slow: in fact I find the habits of this calm and luxurious people entirely agree with my own preconceived opinions of propriety and enjoyment, and I detest the Greeks more than ever. You have no idea of the rich and various costume of the Levant. When I was presented to the Grand Vizier I made up such a costume from my heterogeneous wardrobe that the Turks, who are mad on the subject of dress, were utterly astounded."

"The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, which is naturally somewhat indolent and melancholy... To repose on voluptuous ottomans and smoke superb pipes, daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; to court the air in a carved caïque, by shores which are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater than a canter on a barb; this is, I think, a far more sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our political controversies."

"I am neither Whig nor Tory. My politics are described by one word, and that word is ENGLAND."

"I shall withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders."

"London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law."

"Against that rapacious, tyrannical, and incapable faction, who, having knavishly obtained power by false pretences, sillily suppose that they will be permitted to retain it by half measures, and who, in the course of their brief but disastrous career, have contrived to shake every great interest of the Empire to its centre. Ireland in rebellion, the colonies in convulsion, our foreign relations in a state of such inextricable confusion, that we are told that war alone can sever the Gordian knot of complicated blunders; the farmer in doubt, the shipowner in despair, our merchants without trade, and our manufacturers without markets, the revenue declining, and the army increased, the wealthy hoarding their useless capital, and pauperism prostrate in our once-contented cottages. Englishmen, behold the unparalleled Empire raised by the heroic energies of your fathers; rouse yourselves in this hour of doubt and danger; rid yourselves of all that political jargon and factious slang of Whig and Tory—two names with one meaning, used only to delude you—and unite in forming a great national party which can alone save the country from impending destruction."

"I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few."

"I come forward as the supporter of that great interest which is the only solid basis of the social fabric, and, convinced that the sound prosperity of this country depends upon the protected industry of the farmer, I would resist that spirit of rash and experimental legislation which is fast hurrying this once glorious Empire to the agony of civil convulsion."

""What is care?" asked the Princess, with a smile. "It is a god", replied the Physician, "invisible, but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse — it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair grey"."

"I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best."