Orientalists

"In Tod’s description, the ‘Marusthali’, as it was then called, consists of ‘expansive belts of sand, elevated upon a plain only less sandy, and over whose surface numerous thinly peopled towns and hamlets are scattered’. He also records ‘the tradition of the absorption of the Caggar river, as one of the causes of the comparative depopulation of the northern desert’. This tradition was transmitted in the form of a ‘couplet still sung among Rajputs, which dates the ruin of this part of the country back to the drying up of the Hakra.’ Although Tod could not recall the exact text of the said song, he acknowledged ‘the utility of these ancient traditional couplets’. ‘Folk history’, as we would call it today... Yet, James Tod finds worthy of mention a tradition alive in the 1810s that blames the region’s ‘depopulation’ on the Ghaggar’s ‘absorption’ or disappearance; he even notes how ‘the vestiges of large towns, now buried in the sands, confirm the truth of this tradition, and several of them claim a high antiquity."

"Ujameda, by his wife, Nila, had five sons, who spread their branches on both sides of the Indus. Regarding three the Puranas are silent, which implies their migration to distant regions. Is it possible they might be the origin of the Medes? These Medes are descendants of Yciyat, third son of the patriarch, Menu: and Madai, founder of the Medes, was of Japhet’s line. Aja Merle, the patronymic of the branch of Bajaswa, is from Aja ‘a goat.’ The Assyrian Mede in Scripture is typified by the goat.‘"

"[Once in a while, ladies with courage and virtue, stood up against the royal advances like the wife of Prithviraj Singh, Rae Singh's younger brother. She was a princess of Mewar and once on returning from the fair found herself entangled amidst the labyrinth of apartments at the end of which Akbar stood before her,] “but instead of acquiesence, she drew a poniard from her corset and held it to his breast, dictating, and making him repeat the oath of rununciation of the infamy of all her race"."

"“…To Iletmish we owe some of the finest Muslim works in India. The Arhai din ka-Jhopra began by Qutab al-Din in AD 1198-99, was also completed by him. Tod had said of it that it was ‘one of the most perfect as well as the most ancient monuments of Hindu architecture’, on the evidence of certain four-armed figures to be seen on the pillars…"

"We should never forget that Gautama was born and brought up a Hindu and lived and died a Hindu. His teaching, far-reaching and original as it was, and really subversive of the religion of the day, was Indian throughout. He was the greatest and wisest and best of the Hindus."

"In his researches, Grünendahl (2012:194) has checked Rhys-Davids’ writings and discovered a telling example of how the racialist “NS” worldview was already present in Britain earlier: “However, a more important factor seems to me to be Rhys Davids’s racialist—or more precisely Aryanist—bias, documented, for example, in statements to the effect that Gautama Buddha ‘was the only man of our own race, the only Aryan, who can rank as the founder of a great religion’ and that therefore ‘the whole intellectual and religious development of which Buddhism is the final outcome was distinctively Aryan, and Buddhism is the one essentially Aryan faith’ (1896:185), which ‘took its rise among an advancing and conquering people full of pride in their colour and their race... ‘(1896:187).”"

"[Gautama Buddha] ‘was the only man of our own race, the only Aryan, who can rank as the founder of a great religion’ [and that therefore] ‘the whole intellectual and religious development of which Buddhism is the final outcome was distinctively Aryan, and Buddhism is the one essentially Aryan faith’ (1896:185), [which] ‘took its rise among an advancing and conquering people full of pride in their colour and their race… ‘ (1896:187).”"

"The sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth which the world has yet known."

"But of this genera of writing, William Muir's The Life of Mahomet, first published in 1861 in four volumes, was the best. It was a pioneering study and it has not been improved upon since then. William Muir had strong Christian views but he was also a painstaking and conscientious researcher, and he exhausted most of the sources on the Prophet's life, which were not many. The basic material on Muhammad is limited and new biographies could not really be new except in details, treatment and emphases."

"Neither their (the Muslims') tenets nor their practice will in any respect bear to come into competition with Christian, or even with Jewish morality. ... For instance, we call the Muslims chaste because they abstained from indiscriminate profligacy, and kept carefully within the bounds prescribed as licit by their Prophet. But those bounds besides the utmost freedom of divorce and change of wives, admitted an illimitable licence of cohabitation with 'all that the right hand of the believer might possess,' or, in other words, with any possible number of damsels he might choose to purchase, or receive in gift, or take captive in war."

"The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the caliphate, but of the Mohammedan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared."

"The Hindu mind works in such a way that continuity of worship is more important than physical fact. When the Harappans migrated eastward towards the Gangetic region, they carried with them their memories of the Sarasvati. The myths and sanctity were transferred to Prayag."

"I will, therefore, take a middle path and propose that the Shivalik landscape was such that only a portion of the Yamunā-Tons ran westward into the Markanda Valley, with the rest flowing southward through a smaller and higher opening than today’s ‘Yamuna tear’. The westward branch was the Sarasvatī (which would explain why the Markanda does not appear in the Rig Veda), while the southward was the Yamunā. When it touched the plains, the Yamunā divided once more, as Cunningham and R.D. Oldham proposed, and others after them: because its terraces occupied a higher level than today, part of the river flowed southwest, joining minor streams to form the Drishadvatī of old. In the plains, the Yamunā was thus a double river—which would conveniently explain the root meaning of the word yamunā: ‘twin’."

"Michel Danino reviewed nine genetic studies using large samples from 1999 to 2006 and conclusively found no evidence of invasion. ‘Just like the imaginary Aryan invasion or migration left no trace in Indian literature, in the archaeological and anthropological record, it is invisible at the genetic level…genetics is joining other disciplines in helping clean the cobwebs of colonial historiography. If some have a vested interest in patching together the said cobwebs, so they may keep cluttering our history textbooks, they are only delaying the inevitable.’"

"Aryabhata conceived the earth as a rotating sphere in space, which causes the apparent rising and setting of the sun. Varahamihira disagreed and Brahmagupta derided Aryabhata — but unlike medieval Europe, the intellectual climate in India was free and tolerant of dissent."

"If in the nineteenth century most scholars identified the Ghaggar-Hakra's course with the Vedic Sarasvati, it is basically for three reasons. The Rig-Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, mentions various rivers but praises the Sarasvati above all others: it was a "mighty river" flowing "from the mountain to the sea", and one hymn listed it between the Yamuna and the Sutlej - precisely the location of the Ghaggar-Hakra. Secondly, the local traditions regarding the "lost river" of the Indian desert matched those in the post-Vedic literature (including the Mahabharata), which recorded the gradual disappearance of the Sarasvati. Thirdly, scholars noticed a minor tributary of the Ghaggar called "Sarsuti", an obvious corruption of "Sarasvati": it rises in the Sirmur hills that are part of the Shivaliks and was marked on British maps as early as in 1788. Putting these three lines of evidence together, they concluded that the lost Sarasvati could only have flowed in the Ghaggar's bed."

"When I was 15 or so, I stumbled on literature related to Indian spirituality, and instantly felt that there was something that held essential keys. I read several of the great masters, something of India's ancient literature, and finally decided that Sri Aurobindo's view of life and the world was what I was looking for. It was not a passing craze or a 'New Age' fad; it not only satisfied the intellect but also touched the core of the being."

"I invite you to discover more such recent findings. It is unfortunate that India doesn’t accord archaeology the prestige it deserves, especially among young Indians. We must restore that prestige and fascination and make the discipline attractive so our heritage may be explored and rediscovered before it gets completely erased."

"Es ist das höchste Glück des Menschen, anzubeten, oder, milder gesagt, andre Menschen über sich anzuerkennen, die er liebt und die ihn lieben."

"In his depracation of the political and economic man, of the common man of everyday life, and of the political culture that adapts itself to him, he appeared as an idealist because he had turned his back on modernity, on practicality, because he preferred to legislate for an implausible future rather than to reform an intractable present."

"Lagarde … sneered at the real, the practical world; he distrusted positivism, loathed materialism, and mocked progress."

"Lagarde … was more closely attuned to the sufferings of other men and the shortcomings of his culture than those healthy people who were caught up in the bounding advance of their society."

"In many ways, Lagarde with his tempestuous moods had remained a child, wounded, frightened, craving the affectionate recognition of others, yet so fearful of losing his independence that he rebuffed and insulted the very friends he sought."

"Our speech has ceased to speak, it shouts; it says cute, not beautiful, colossal, not great; it cannot find the right word any more, because the word is no longer the designation of an object, but the echo of some kind of gossip about the object."

"What was most repulsive at the meetings was the stench of the guild, which assailed me everywhere: intellectual proletariat, that labors on its humdrum articles in the sweat of its brow, that does not know that science is to make one free and happy."

"Good madam, when ladies are willing, A man must needs look like a fool; For me I would not give a shilling For one who would love out of rule.You should leave us to guess by your blushing, And not speak the matter so plain; ’Tis our’s to write and be pushing, ’Tis yours to affect disdain.That you’re in a terrible taking, By all these sweet oglings I see, But the fruit that can fall without shaking, Indeed is too mellow for me."

"Lord Byron, in response to Lady Mary Montague's line 'And we meet, with champagne and a chicken at last' (from "The Lover: A Ballad"), reported in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life, ed. Thomas Moore (Paris: A. and W. Gaglinani, 1830), p. 391"

"What say you to such a supper with such a woman? ... Is not her 'champagne and chicken' worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry?"

"But the fruit that can fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me."

"Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen."

"Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet; In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet."

"Civility costs nothing and buys everything."

"Though I never get possession, ’Tis a pleasure to adore; Hope, the wretch’s only blessing, May, in time, procure me more.Constant courtship may obtain her, Where both wealth and merit fail; And the lucky minute gain her— Fate and fancy must prevail.At Diana’s shrine, aloud, By the bow and by the quiver, Thrice she bowed, and thrice she vowed, Once to love—and that forever."

"Cease, fond shepherd! Cease desiring What you never must enjoy; She derides your vain aspiring, She, to all your sex is coy.Cunning Damon once pursued her, Yet she never would incline; Strephon too, as vainly wooed her, Though his flocks are more than thine.At Diana’s shrine, aloud, By the zone around her waist, Thrice she bowed, and thrice she vowed, Like the Goddess, to be chaste."

"Thou silver deity of secret night, Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade; Thou conscious witness of unknown delight, The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!By thy pale beams I solitary rove, To thee my tender grief confide; Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove, My friend, my goddess, and my guide.E’en thee, fair queen, from thy amazing height, The charms of young Endymion drew; Veil’d with the mantle of concealing night; With all thy greatness and thy coldness too."

"Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,— In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied."

"The historical Jesus can be retrieved only within the context of first-century Galilean Judaism.... Against this background, what kind of picture of Jesus emerges from the Gospels? That of a rural holy man, initially a follower of the movement of repentance launched by another holy man, John the Baptist. In the hamlets and villages of Lower Galilee and the lakeside, Jesus set out to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God within the lifetime of his generation and outlined the religious duties his simple listeners were to perform to prepare themselves for the great event."

"This is a simple and moving message, which Jesus formulated in his own language for his simple Galilean audience, about God, the heavenly Father, on the dignity of all human beings as children of God, on life turned into worship by total trust, on an overwhelming sense of urgency to do one’s duty without procrastination, on the sanctification of the here and now, and above all on the love of God through the love of one’s neighbour."

"The absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls of historical texts proper should not surprise us. Neither in the inter-Testamental period, nor in earlier biblical times, was the recording of history as we understand it a strong point among the Jews."

"If one had to single out the most revolutionary novelty furnished by Qumran, its contribution to our understanding of the genesis of Jewish literary compositions could justifiably be our primary choice."

"The account of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the manuscripts are inaccurately designated, and of the half a century of intense research that followed, is in itself a fascinating as well as an exasperating story."

"'Tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess."

"You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's."

"Mr. Selden was a person whom no character can part flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages, (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings,) that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh and sometimes obscure; which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men; but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity: but in his conversation he was the most dear discourser, and had the best faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, of any man that hath been known. Mr. Hyde was wont to say, that he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr. Selden's acquaintance from the time he was very young; and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London; and he was very much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached, for staying in London, and in the parliament, after they were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them; but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellencies in the other scale."

"A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness' sake. Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat."

"Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do."

"Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain."

"Wise men say nothing in dangerous times."

"Never tell your resolution beforehand."

"The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives."