QUOTATIONS about India and Hinduism -- worth reading

Sacrificer           unknown
Sacrifice code       wfor0369
Sacrifice date       25 march 2009

INDPRIDE @

World peace is in fact our ultimate goal. In fact, it has been our nation's life mission, and we have to fulfil it. To give lessons in peace to the world on a spiritual level and to create a sense of oneness in the whole of humanity has been our real national mission since ages. But when will all this become possible? Only when we succeed in bringing together crores of our own people and imbuing them with our sublime cultural values and sterling character and motivating them for the achievement of that mission.
- Shri Guruji M S Golwalkar

A Hindu of this place is as much a Hindu as the one from Madras or Bombay.....The study of the Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata produce the same idea throughout the country.....If we lay stress on it forgetting all the minor differences that exist between different sects then by the grace of Providence, we shall ere long be able to consolidate all the different sects into a mighty Hindu nation. -
Bal Gangadhar Tilak

A country like India, which never attacked other countries in the past, is a true embodiment of peace, at a time when war is needed to restore peace.
- Baba Satyanarayan Mourya

India is a Hindu nation forced to wear the ugly formless garb of Western secularism. Hindu nationalism is a backlash against this pedantic Nehruvian aspiration, the 50-year-old soulless construct that sunders religion from its natural place in Indian public life. The Congress needs to recognise that public religiosity, not the private spiritual search, was Gandhi's way. And this is the one true way for India.
- Sir Mark Tully

Vedas are the oldest classics and the most precious treasures of India. The soul of Bharatiya Sanskriti dwells in the Vedas. The entire world admits the importance of the Vedas.
- Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (President of India)

Hindu culture is not such a weak and fluffy thing as to be easily stamped out; it has lasted through something like five millenniums and is going to carry on much longer and has quite enough power to survive.
- Shri Aurobindo

What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men.
- Swami Vivekanand

India must be saved for the good of the world, since India alone can lead the world to peace and a new world order.
- Mother of Pondicherry

India of the ages is not dead neither has she spoken her last creative word ; she lives and has still something to do for herself and for human peoples. And that which must seek now to awake is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the occident's success and failure, but still the ancient immemorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma.
-Shri Aurobindo

Hinduism is the history of all foreign and Indian races. India was the cradle of civilisation when Europeans were mere barbarians.
- Babu Rao Patel

Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of world's history but it is already becoming clear that the chapter, which had a western beginning, will have an Indian ending, if it is not to end in self destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way - Emperor Asoka's and Mahatma Gandhi's principal of non-violence and Sri Ramakrishna's testimony of religions.
- Arnold Toynbee

Please study your own history with care and attention, you will please mark that, so long as we were strictly following the basic tenets of our Sanatana Dharma, which is based on mutual love, unity and selfless discharge of our moral duty, with faith in God, no outside power could dare look at us with evil designs.
- Swami Ram Tirth

Hindus must take it upon themselves to reform their society, which is badly needed, but this should be done according to the soul of India, which is Dharma, not according to Western political, intellectual or religious ideologies, which are generally adharmic, that is unspiritual, however modern or well-funded they may be.
- David Frawley

The Hindu culture is the life-breath of Hindusthan. It is therefore clear that if Hindusthan is to be protected, we should first nourish the Hindu culture. If the Hindu culture perishes in Hindusthan itself, and if the Hindu society ceases to exist, it will hardly be appropriate to refer to the mere geographical entity that remains as Hindusthan. Mere geographical lumps do not make a nation.
- Dr. Keshav Hedgewar

Standards of moral judgement have increasingly tended to become universal, and no statement of faith can escape scrutiny simply because it is made in a book hailed as holy by some people.
- Sita Ram Goel

Mohammedans talk of universal brotherhood, but what comes out of that in reality? Why, anybody who is not Mohammedan will not be admitted into the brotherhood; he will more likely have his throat cut. Christians talk of universal brotherhood; but anyone who is not a Christian must go to that place where he will be eternally barbecued.
- Swami Vivekanand

The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.
- Dr.B.R.Ambedkar

You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is 'I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people?…I am sorry they (Gandhi and Nehru) are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way…I see no reason why the greatness of India's past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy.
- Shri Aurobindo Ghosh

Hindus are not exclusive in their religious, spiritual or cultural views. They believe in the existence of many paths both inside their tradition and outside of it. They are ready at any time to embrace their Christian and Islamic brothers, without insisting that everyone becomes a Hindu. But one cannot embrace someone who says, "We do not accept your religion, we condemn your gods and sages, we reject your holy books and practices, salvation is ours and not yours, and we will not cease striving to convert you to our way!"
- -David Frawley

Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less but also an enemy the more.
-- Swami Vivekanand

Christian theology becomes relevant only for those who share or accept a particular kind of spiritual experience, and these are tempted to dismiss other experiences as illusory and other scriptures as imperfect. Hinduism has not betrayed into this situation on account of its adherence to fact….When the Hindu found that different people aimed at and achieved God - realisation in different ways, he generously recognised them all and justified their place in the course of history.
- Dr.S.Radhakrishnan (Late President of India)

My own experiences but confirm the opinion that the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu is a coward; where there are cowards there will always be bullies.
- M.K.Gandhi

To Indian Muslims I have only one question. Why did you not open your mouths on the Kashmir issue? Why did you not condemn the action of Pakistan? … It is your duty now to sail in the same boat and sink or swim together. I want to tell you very frankly that you cannot ride two horses. Select one horse. Those who want to go to Pakistan can go there and live in peace.
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

The explanation of Muslim backwardness is to be found in the very make-up of the Muslim mind. Indian Muslims believe that they are a perfect society and are superior to all other communities in India. One of the grounds for this belief is the assumption that the Islamic faith embodies the vision of a perfect society and, therefore, being a perfect Muslim implies not having to make any further progress. This is an unacceptable claim by modern criteria.
-- Hamid Dalwai

If the Hindu does not make a serious and determined effort towards persuading his Muslim brethren to renounce the doctrine of jihad, if he does not devote his heart and soul to devise adequate means of achieving that end, in a word, if he does not shed his deep-seated indifference to things Islamic, then he is most certainly proceeding towards self-destruction and that too in a not very distant future.
- Suhas Majumdar

The tragic legacy of Nehru era was that it made all sane Hindu voices of the intelligentsia deny their Hindu roots, speak in an alien voice not rooted in Indian society and inflict their imported notions of culture on the people in a most contemptuous way.
- Amitabh Mattoo

I really believe that one of the failures of Congress secularism was that it treated everything Hindu, thereby Indian, with disdain.
- Smt. Tavleen Singh

To say that India has a secular character is being historically unsound. Dangerous or not, Hindu militancy is a corrective to the history I have been talking about. It is a creative force and will be so. Islam can't reconcile with it.
- V.S.Naipaul

Hinduise the politics and militarize the Hindu.
-Swatantryaveer Savarkar

The biggest mistake made by the Congress was to have depended too much on the artificial Hindu-Moslem unity for the achievement of Swaraj. This led the Congress to accept compromise after compromise inimical to national interest, as a heavy price paid for Moslem collaboration.
- Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect ,none so scientific, none so philosophical and no so spiritual that the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India's roots are stuck and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India's own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it. India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one.
- Annie Besant

A Hindu is hundred times more refined, more cultured, more honest, more religious, more balanced in his outlook than the average westerner.
- Yehudi Menuhin

Let me tell you plainly, if a comparison be instituted with any amount of justice, the Hindus with all their faults will be found head and shoulders above all other religions in the world as a moral community.
- Swami Vivekanand

In the face of an Indian, you can see the natural glory of life, while we have covered ourselves with an artificial cloak.
- George Bernard Shaw

The doctrines inculcated by Jesus and his apostles are quite different from those human inventions which the missionaries are persuaded to profess.
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Hindus are religious, cheerful, justice-loving, truthful, grateful and God-loving.
-Samuel Jhonson, English Poet

India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity... of self-government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all.
- Will Durant

No real change in history has ever been achieved by discussions.
- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Our object, our claim is that we shall not perish as a nation, but live as a nation.
- Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

When the Europeans came, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said that this is the book of God and asked us to meditate. When we opened our eyes they had the land and we had the Bible.
- African Leader Jomo Kenyatta

India is the source from which not only the rest of Asia but the whole of Western world derived their knowledge and their religion.
- Professor Heeren

The philosophy of the Hindus is another proof of their superiority in civilization and intellect to the moderns as well as the ancients. The Hindus had the widest range of mind of which man is capable.
- Mrs. Manning

India has left a deeper mark upon the history, philosophy and religions of mankind than any other terrestrial unity in the universe. Powerful empires existed and flourished in India, while Englishmen were still wandering in woods.
- Lord Curzon

If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living man have found a home from the very earliest days of man's existence on earth, it is India.
- M. Romain Rolland

The Western military has four wings : the army, the navy, the air force, and the church.
- Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa

Christians are proud that they brought education to India, but it is not true: there were for instance 125,000 medical institutes in Madras before the British came. Indians never lacked education, the Christians only brought British education to India, which in fact caused more damage to India by westernizing many of us.
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

It is about time we recognize that we are not a nation in the European sense of the term, that is, we are not a fragment of a civilization claiming to be a nation on the basis of accidents of history which is what every major European nation is. We are a people primarily by virtue of the continuity and coherence of our civilization which has survived all shocks. And though inevitably weakened as a result of foreign invasions, conquests and rule for almost a whole millennium, it is once again ready to resume its march.
- Girilal Jain

What is soft Hindutva? Hindutva itself is soft. Had it not been soft and flexible, no other religion would have entered our country. Softness, compassion and mobility is the philosophy of Hindutva. What is hard Hindutva? I don't know.
- Sunil Dutt ,MP & Actor

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
- Albert Einstein

For me the most important thing is to spread the Hindu knowledge about the soul. This is more important than any other knowledge and is my main priority.
- Alfred B. Ford

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a country which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all countries of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.
- Shashi Tharoor

The way the Communists are functioning in India is a mere adventurism - no constructive ability, no reality of purpose.
- Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

We have no quarrel with Christianity. But we oppose the way in which conversions are done. Therefore, we have to reconvert those who might have been converted by deceit or under some temptation.
- Babu Jagjivan Ram

A very important factor which is making it almost impossible for Hindu-Muslim unity to become an accomplished fact is that the Muslims cannot confine their patriotism to any one country. I had frankly asked many Muslims whether, in the event of any Mohammedan power invading India, they would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common land. I was not satisfied with the reply I got from them.
- Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago.
- Grant Duff, British Historian

Imagine a story that is the Odyssey, Aesop`s fables, Romeo and Juliet, the Bible and Star Wars all at the same time. Imagine a story that combines adventure and aphorism, romance and religion, fantasy and philosophy. Imagine a story that makes young children marvel, burly men weep, and old women dream. Such a story exists in India, and it is called the Ramayana.
- Jonah Blank, former editor of Asahi Evening News in Tokyo, Japan

It is not totally baseless if Hindu leaders fear that 'Indianisation of Christianity' is meant to bring about 'Christianisation of India'.
- Nitya Chaitanya Guru

The idea of equality is unacceptable to Islam. For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
- Amir Taheri, Sunday Times, 23rd May 2004

As far as the construction of the Ram temple is concerned, some people say Hindus should not fight over a structure of brick and stone. They should not quarrel over a piece of land. I want to ask these people, 'If someone burns the national flag will you say "Oh, it doesn't matter, it is only two meters of cloth which is not a great national loss." ' The question is not of two meters of cloth but of an insult to the nation. Ram's birthplace is not a quarrel about a piece of land. It is a question of national integrity. The Hindu is not fighting for a temple of brick and stone. He is fighting for the preservation of a civilization, for his Indianness, for national consciousness, for the recognition of his true nature.
- Sadhvi Rithambhra

Ancient Indians measured both time and space and mapped out the heavens. They analysed the constitution of matter and understood the nature of the spirit. They conceived and developed the sciences of logic and grammar, and made great advances in fields so divergent as anatomy and astronomy, philosophy and metaphysics, medicine and mathematics.
- N.A.Palkhivala

***