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Hinduism

Hinduism is a religious tradition which originated in the Indian subcontinent in ancient times, often referred as Sanātana Dharma (सनातन धर्म) by many of its practitioners, a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal principle." Having over 1 billion adherents, it is counted at one of the most popular religions, and often referred as "oldest religion".

A

 * One of the most enriching yet frustrating aspects of the study of Hinduism is its huge body of religious writing. The fledgling scholar is confronted by a vast array of sacred literature that presents confusing and often conflicting ideas. Because Hinduism is such an ancient religion, its textual heritage has been compiled over considerable time. Most importantly, the sacred books of the Hindus do not replace each other but instead have built up into an extensive mass of sacred knowledge.
 * Stuart Abbott, in Hindu Goddesses : Beliefs and Practices (2009), p. 44

 * The Hindu religion appears … as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance — crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit.
 * Sri Aurobindo Letters, Vol. II (1949) p. 53; also in The Soul of India (1974) by Satyavrata R Patel

B

 * 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 none 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,

 * This is the India of which I speak - the India which, as I said, is to me the Holy Land. For those who, though born for this life in a Western land and clad in a Western body, can yet look back to earlier incarnations in which they drank the milk of spiritual wisdom from the breast of their true mother - they must feel ever the magic of her immemorial past, must dwell ever under the spell of her deathless fascination; for they are bound to India by all the sacred memories of their past; and with her, too, are bound up all the radiant hopes of their future, a future which they know they will share with her who is their true mother in the soul-life.
 * Annie Besant,

 * India is the mother of religion. In her are combined science and religion in perfect harmony, and that is the Hindu religion, and it is India that shall be again the spiritual mother of the world.
 * Annie Besant,

 * During the early life of a Nation, religion is an essential for the binding together of the individuals who make the nation. India was born, as it were, in the womb of Hinduism, and her body was for long shaped by that religion. Religion is a binding force, and India has had a longer binding together by religion than any other Nation in the world, as she is the oldest of the living Nations.
 * Annie Besant,

 * Based on knowledge it need not fear any advance in knowledge; profound in spirituality, the depths of the spirit find in it deeps answering into deep, it has nothing to dread, everything to hope, from growth in intellect, from increasing sway of reason.
 * Annie Besant,

C

 * It is no secret that we in the West live in a time of spiritual crisis. Western civilization has been guided by Christianity. Now it appears that this period is drawing to a close. Both religious institutions and social structures are in disarray. A great many things that were considered basic assumptions of western thought are being challenged. The reality of the external world, the soul, the linear nature of time.
 * Stephen Cross, in his book Hinduism (1994), p. 1

 * Mathematical science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths of the sun and the moon were accurately measured. The philosophy of the learned few was perhaps for the first time, firmly allied with the theology of the believing many, and Brahmanism laid down as articles of faith the unity of God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the responsibility of man. The remote dwellers upon the Ganges distinctly made known that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punishment which awaited evil deeds."
 * General Joseph Davey Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs,

 * Although the ancient and modern scriptures and practices of Hinduism have been examined by European scholars for more than a century, it would be hardly an exaggeration to say that a faithful account of Hinduism might well be given in the form of a categorical denial of most of the statements that have been made about it, alike by European scholars and by Indians trained in our modern skeptical and evolutionary modes of thought.
 * Ananda Coomaraswamy in his book Hinduism and Buddhism (1943) quoted in Kak, S. Racism, Eurocentrism, and Indology.

D

 * Hindu polytheism isn't really polytheism but monotheism in disguise.
 * Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

 * It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future.
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

 * Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things.
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

 * 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. Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India....This is the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilization an exclusive Western thing.
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

 * "As flowing rivers disappear in the sea, losing their name and form, thus a wise man, freed from name and form, goes to the divine person who is beyond all." Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is as permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions. But it has satisfied the philosophical Hindu mind with astonishing continuity.
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

 * Even in Europe and America, this wistful theosophy has won millions upon millions of followers, from lonely women and tired men to Schopenhauer and Emerson. Who would have thought that the great American philosopher of individualism would give perfect expression to the Hindu conviction in his poem 'Brahma', that individuality is a delusion?
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

 * They are the oldest extant philosophy and psychology of our race; the surprisingly subtle and patient effort of man to understand the mind and the world, and their relation. The Upanishads are as old as Homer, and as modem as Kant.
 * Will Durant, As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

E

 * Let me confess that I cannot share the confidence in the superiority of Europeans and their ways which is prevalent in the West. European civilization is not satisfying and Asia can still offer something more attractive to many who are far from Asiatic in spirit.
 * Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West, p. 41

 * I do not think that Christianity will ever make much progress in Asia, for what is commonly known by that name is not the teaching of Christ but a rearrangement of it made in Europe and like most European institutions practical rather than thoughtful. And as for the teaching of Christ himself, the Indian finds it excellent but not ample or satisfying. There is little in it which cannot be found in some of the many scriptures of Hinduism..."
 * Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West

 * The claim of India to the attention of the world is that she, more than any other nation since history began, has devoted herself to contemplating the ultimate mysteries of existence and, in my eyes, the fact that Indian thought diverges widely from our own popular thought is a positive merit.
 * Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West

 * Hinduism has not been made, but has grown. It is a jungle, not a building. It is a living example of a great national paganism such as might have existed in Europe if Christianity had not become the state religion of the Roman Empire, if there had remained an incongruous jumble of old local superstitions, Greek philosophy, and oriental cults such as the worship of Sarapis or Mitras.
 * Sir Charles Eliot ,Philosophy and the Self: East and West

 * Compared to Islam and Christianity, Hinduism’s doctrines are extraordinarily fluid, and multiform. India deals in images and metaphors. Restless, subtle and argumentative as Hindu thought is, it is less prone than European theology to the vice of distorting transcendental ideas by too stringent definition. It adumbrates the indescribable by metaphors and figures. It is not afraid of inconsistencies which may illustrate different aspects of the infinite, but it rarely tries to cramp the divine within the limits of a logical phrase.
 * Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West

 * The Hindu has an extraordinary power of combining dogma and free thought, uniformity, and variety. Utmost latitude of interpretation is allowed. In all ages Hindus have been passionately devoted to speculation. It is also to point out that from the Upanishads down to the writings of Tagore in the present day literature from time to time enunciates the idea that the whole universe is the manifestation of some exuberant force giving expression to itself in joyous movement.
 * Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West

 * The only Hinduism which they like is museum Hinduism; any Hinduism that displays a will to survive is treated with the same horror that would be aroused if a mummy were to show signs of life.
 * Koenraad Elst Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001)

 * The Indian teaching, through its clouds of legends, has yet a simple and grand religion, like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak truth, love others, and to dispose trifles. The East is grand—and makes Europe appear the land of trifles … All is soul and the soul is the Almighty.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson. source: The West Looks at India, Krishnanand Joshi. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

F

 * The Hindu mind represents humanity's oldest and most continuous stream of conscious intelligence on the planet. Hindu sages, seers, saints, yogis and jnanis have maintained an unbroken current of awareness linking humanity with the Divine since the dawn of history, and as carried over from earlier cycles of civilization in previous humanities unknown to our present spiritually limited culture.
 * David Frawley,

 * The Hindu mind has a vision of eternity and infinity. It is aware of the vast cycles of creation and destruction that govern the many universes and innumerable creatures within them.
 * David Frawley,

 * 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,

G

 * What the divine author of the Mahabharata said of his great creation is equally true of Hinduism. Whatever of substance is contained in any other religion is always to be found in Hinduism, and what is not contained in it is insubstantial or unnecessary.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 17-9-1925, p. 324, as quoted in The Essence of Hinduism.

 * Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued. As soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst forth upon the world with a brilliance perhaps never known before.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 24-4-1924, p. 136, as quoted in The Essence of Hinduism.

 * Hinduism is like the Ganges pure and unsullied at its source, but taking in its course the impurities in the way. Even like the Ganges it is beneficent in its total effect. It takes a provincial form in every province, but the inner substance is retained everywhere.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 8-4-1926, p.131, as quoted in The Essence of Hinduism.

 * I think I have understood Hinduism correctly when I say that it is eternal, all-embracing and flexible enough to suit all situations.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, as quoted in Relentless Brush Strokes : A Memoir (2008) by Lalitha Shankar, p. 185

 * Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. Ancient India has survived because Hinduism was not developed along material but spiritual lines.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * I believe that the civilization India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestry. Rome went; Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * Hinduism is a living organism liable to growth and decay subject to the laws of Nature. One and indivisible at the root, it has grown into a vast tree with innumerable branches. The changes in the season affect it. It has its autumn and its summer, its winter and its spring. It is, and is not, based on scriptures. It does not derive its authority from one book. Non violence has found the highest expression and application in Hinduism.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * Hinduism is a living organism. One and indivisible at the root, it has grown into a vast tree with innumerable branches. Knowledge is limitless and so also the application of truth. Everyday we add to our knowledge of the power of Atman (soul) and we shall keep on doing so.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * I am unable to identify with orthodox Christianity. I must tell you in all humility that Hinduism, as I know it, entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being, and I find solace in the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount....I must confess to you that when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, The Collected Works, Volume 27, New Delhi, 1968, p. 435.

 * I have no other wish in this world but to find light and joy and peace through Hinduism.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, 28-3-1936.

 * On examination, I have found it to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me. Its freedom from dogma makes a forcible appeal to me in as much as it gives the votary the largest scope for self-expression.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, The Collected Works,  Volume 35, New Delhi, 1969, p. 166-7.

 * Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless gems. The deeper you dive the more treasures you find.
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace … Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?
 * Mahatma Gandhi,

 * Hinduism would scarcely be recognizable today, if Vaishnavism had been actively suppressed in the 16th century: other devotional forms may have taken its place, but we cannot know what those would have been. It is a simple fact that contemporary Hinduism as a living practice would not be what it is if it were not for the devotional practices initiated under Mughal rule. The sad irony of the assault on the Babri mosque is that the Hindu fanatics who attacked it destroyed a symbol of the very accommodations that made their own beliefs possible.
 * Amitav Ghosh, "The man behind the mosque", The Little Magazine

 * Before long, I read my first book on Hindu philosophy. It was like a blow to my solar plexus; it jarred me awake. Here, at last, was what I sought. Instead of an object of dispute and often ridicule, here, reincarnation was taken for granted. The teachings were logical, unsentimental, yet filled with the spirit of non-harmfulness, compassion, understanding, love.
 * Nina Graboi One Foot in the Future: A Woman's Spiritual Journey (2000), chapter nineteen

 * India indeed has a preciousness which a materialistic age is in danger of missing. Some day the fragrance of her thought will win the hearts of men. This grim chase after our own tails which marks the present age cannot continue for ever. The future contains a new human urge towards the real beauty and holiness of life. When it comes Hinduism will be searched by loving eyes and defended by knightly hands.
 * W. J. Grant,

H

 * When we read in the valuable production of those great Oriental scholars...those of a Jones, a Wilkings, a Colebrooke, or a Halhed, - we uniformly discover in the Hindus a nation, whose polished manners are the result of a mild disposition and an extensive benevolence.
 * Alexander Hamilton

 * After these conversations with Tagore some of the ideas that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense. That was a great help for me.
 * Werner Heisenberg, on conversations with Rabindranath Tagore on Hindu philosophy, as quoted in Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations With Remarkable People (1988) by Fritjof Capra, who states that after these "He began to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for himself and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of the Indian spiritual traditions."
 * Variant: After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.
 * As quoted in Pride of India (2006) by Samskrita Bharati. p. 56

 * Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book.
 * Arthur Holmes, The Age of Earth (1913)

 * The sparkling energy of India lies in Hinduism. Without the framework of Hindu belief India would fall apart. Without Hinduism India is not herself... Because Indian society has, like the Chinese, been a unitary one where science and religion have never been in conflict, there has been no basic split as has happened with our own Christian background. Our own antagonism between the two disciplines of theology and science has created chaos in our thinking and a curious dichotomy during the past two centuries. In India I found a thankful release from our restricted vision of the creation of God... Hinduism has remained in constant, replenished usage throughout this tremendous stretch of time, impervious to outside influence, as onward flowing as the imperturbable Ganga itself. Not even Moghul invasion and Muslim supremacy for 700 years, nor the arrival of the British, Dutch, French and Portuguese with their own civilization and standards, penetrated into the imperious core of this steadfast faith. Hindu thought took and absorbed according to its own will, folding itself inwards at the sense of approaching danger like some gigantic sea-anemone drawing up all its tentacles, only to stretch outwards and flourish when the danger was past. One continues to hope that this will remain so, that modern Indians will realize that this is their enviable strength despite all their understandable yearnings for the material advantages of technology which they have seen give power and monopoly of advantage to the Western world. But their quality of synthesis, of intelligent absorption, may still save them from the sterility of urban life and the monotonous obsession with quantity and things, rather than with quality and life-perspective.
 * (source: The Music of India - By Peggy Holroyde p. 44-52).

I

 * I believe the Gita to be one of the major religious documents of the world. If its teachings did not seem to me to agree with those of the other gospels and scriptures, then my own system of values would be thrown into confusion, and I should feel completely bewildered. The Gita is not simply a sermon, but a philosophical treatise.
 * Christopher Isherwood, in Vedanta for the Western World (1943), p. 358

 * If Hindutva is Hinduism then the Ku Klux Klan is Christianity
 * The filmmaker’s speech at the Dismantling Global Hindutva conference being held from September 10-September 12.

J

 * Many Hindu intellectuals are just not able to comprehend the fact that there is no human aspiration or experience which lies outside the range of Hinduism; it provides for even demon-Gods. In contrast, all religions are in the nature of sects, though they cannot be so defined because of their insistence on their separateness and, indeed, hostility to Hinduism.
 * Girilal Jain, Page 5, The Hindu Phenomenon, ISBN 81-86112-32-4

In reality, however, Buddhisms and Jainism have been no more than movements within the larger body of Hinduism, not significantly different from Lingayats, Saktas or Bhaktas of more recent times.
 * In view of deliberate attempts in recent decades to project Buddhism and Jainism as separate religions, distinct from Hinduism, it would be in order to deal with them in passing. the attempts have clearly been motivated by the design to separate their followers from the parent body called Hinduism just as Sikhs have been to an extent. Though not to the same extent as in the case of Sikhs, the attempts have succeeded in as much as neo-Buddhists and at least some Jains have come to regard themselves as non-Hindus.
 * Girilal Jain, page 24-25, The Hindu Phenomenon, ISBN 81-86112-32-4

 * "Over time, apparent misunderstandings have arisen over the origins of Jainism and relationship with its sister religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. There has been an ongoing debate between Jainism and Vedic Hinduism as to which revelation preceded the other. What is historically known is that there was a tradition along with Vedic Hinduism known as Sramana Dharma. Essentially, the sramana tradition included in its fold, the Jain and Buddhist traditions, which disagreed with the eternality of the Vedas, the needs for ritual sacrifices and the supremacy of the Brahmins."
 * Girilal Jain, in Harry Oldmeadow (2007) Light from the East: Eastern Wisdom for the Modern West, World Wisdom, Inc. ISBN 1933316225

 * As to Jains being Hindu dissenters, and, therefore governable by Hindu law, we are not told this date of secession [...] Jainism certainly has a longer history than is consistent with its being a creed of dissenters from Hinduism.
 * Girilal Jain, in L. Jaini, (1916) Jaina Law, Bhadrabahu Samhita, (Text with translation ) Arrah, Central jaina publishing House p. 12-13

K
Some worshippers, certainly, construed those stone figures literally, viewed them as gods, pure and simple, in a way not so different from the grama devata worship of the villages. Indeed, one history of South India spoke of a "fusion of village deities and Vedic Brahminical deities" going back to around the beginning of the Christian era that had brought a comingling of different forms of worship. But sophisticated Hindus, at least, understood that these stone "deities" merely represented forms or facets of a single godhead; in contemplating them, you were reawakened to the Oneness of all things. For those whose worship remained primitive, meanwhile, the garish stone figures could be seen as hooks by which to snare the spiritually unsophisticated and direct them toward something higher and finer. '''The genius of Hinduism, then, was that it left room for everyone. It was a profoundly tolerant religion. It denied no other faiths. It set out no single path. It prescribed no one canon of worship and belief. It embraced everything and everyone.''' Whatever your personality there was a god or goddess, an incarnation, a figure, a deity, with which to identify, from which to draw comfort, to rouse you to a higher or deeper spirituality. '''There were gods for every purpose, to suit any frame of mind, any mood, any psyche, any stage or station of life. In taking on different forms, God became formless; in different names, nameless.'''
 * In Hindu lore, each of the three primal gods appeared in many forms. Siva could be Parmeswara. Vishnu could be Narasimha or Venkatarama. They had consorts and relatives, each of whom themselves had, over the centuries, become the objects of worship, the centers of their own cults. Vishnu, for example, was worshipped in the form of his consort Lakshmi, and as the monkey god, Hanuman. Each was endowed with distinct personalities; each gained its own adherents.
 * Robert Kanigel, in The Man Who Knew Infinity : A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (1991), p. 35

 * The above remarks about conservatism could be made with equal or even greater force about the Mogul Empire. Despite the sheer size of the kingdom at its height and the military genius of some of its emperors, despite the brilliance of its courts and the craftsmanship of its luxury products, despite even a sophisticated banking and credit network, the system was weak at its core. A conquering Muslim elite lay on top of a vast mass of poverty-stricken peasants chiefly adhering to Hinduism. In the towns themselves there were very considerable numbers of merchants, bustling markets, and an attitude towards manufacture, trade, and credit among Hindu business families which would make them excellent examples of Weber's Protestant ethic. As against this picture of an entrepreneurial society just ready for economic "takeoff" before it was a victim of British imperialism, there are the gloomier portrayals of the many indigenous retarding factors in Indian life. The sheer rigidity of Hindu religious taboos militated against modernization: rodents and insects could not be killed, so vast amounts of foodstuffs were lost; social mores about handling refuse and excreta led to permanently insanitary conditions, a breeding ground for bubonic plagues; the caste system throttled initiative, instilled ritual, and restricted the market; and the influence wielded over Indian local rulers by the Brahman priests meant that this obscurantism was effective at the highest level. Here were the social checks of the deepest sort to any attempts at radical change. Small wonder that later many Britons, having first plundered and then tried to govern India in accordance with Utilitarian principles, finally left with the feeling that the country was still a mystery to them.
 * Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987), pp. 12-13

 * Hinduism at its best has spoken the only relevant truth about the way to self-realization in the full sense of the word.
 * Count Hermann Keyserling, The Huston Smith Reader, p. 122

 * Hinduism has produced the profoundest metaphysics that we know of.
 * Count Hermann Keyserling, The Huston Smith Reader

 * The absolute superiority of India over the West in philosophy; poetry from the Mahabharata, containing the Bhagavad-Gita, “perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world".
 * Count Hermann Keyserling, The Huston Smith Reader

 * Benares is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths anymore.....I feel nearer here than I have ever done to the heart of the world; here I feel everyday as if soon, perhaps even today, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation...The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in strength; stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend his time on the Ganges; here he would discover what piety means.
 * Count Hermann Keyserling, The Huston Smith Reader

 * Hinduism has proven much more open than any other religion to new ideas, scientific thought, and social experimentation. Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut than mainstream Christianity, politically less determined than Islam, ethically less heroic than Buddhism, but it would offer something to everybody. It will appear idealistic to those who look for idealism, pragmatic to the pragmatists, spiritual to the seekers, sensual to the here-and-now generation. Hinduism, by virtue of its lack of an ideology and its reliance on intuition, will appear to be more plausible than those religions whose doctrinal positions petrified a thousand years ago.
 * Klaus L. Klostermaier, Professer Religious Studies at the University of Manitoba, former director of Oxford Centre of Hindu Studies, "A Survey of Hinduism",

L

 * The great civilization of the Indian subcontinent, has had its roots deep in antiquity, some seven to eight thousand years ago, and its flowering in the third millennium B.C. still lives on. In contrast, when we look round the world we are surprised by the fact that the Egyptian and Mesopotamia civilizations that flourished alongside this Indic Civilization have all disappeared, leaving hardly any trace behind. Why? The Indian psyche has indeed been pondering over this great cultural phenomenon of 'livingness', and this quest.
 * B. B. Lal, Archaeologist,

 * What is that ‘something’, some inherent strength? Doubtless it lies in the liberal character of the Indian civilization, which allows for cross-fertilization with other cultures, without losing its own identity. Even time (kala), the great devourer, has stood testimony to the fact that the deep foundations of Indian culture could not be shaken either by internal upheavals, however great may have been their magnitude.... " the soul of India lives on!"
 * B. B. Lal, Archaeologist,

 * In these researches into the remote past we have frequently found the disciple Jesus, who in Palestine had the privilege of yielding up His body to the Christ. As a result of that act He received the incarnation of Apollonius of Tyana, and in the eleventh century He appeared in India as the teacher Ramanujacharya, who revived the devotional element in Hinduism, and raised it to so high a level. p. 13
 * C.W. Leadbeater, in  The Inner Life (1917)

 * In thinking of the Lord Buddha we must not forget that He is very much more than merely the founder of a religion. He is a great official of the Occult Hierarchy, the greatest of all save one, and the founder in previous incarnations of many religions before this one which now bears His title. For He was the Vyasa who has done so much for the Indian religion; He was Hermes, the great founder of the Egyptian mysteries; He was the original Zoroaster, from whom came the sun and fire worship; and he was also Orpheus, the great bard of the Greeks. In this last of His many births, when He came as the Lord Gautama, it does not appear that He had originally any intention of founding a new religion. He appeared simply as a reformer of Hinduism —a faith which was already of hoary antiquity, and had therefore departed much from its original form, as all religions have. It had become hardened in many ways, and appears to have been very far less elastic even than it is now. Even now we all know how strictly drawn are the lines between the castes, what an iron rigidity there is as to forms and ceremonies. We know that even now no man can be converted to Hinduism; the only way to enter that faith is to be born into it. p. 98
 * C.W. Leadbeater, in  The Inner Life (1917)

 * When ignorant missionaries dilate upon the three hundred and thirty million gods of the Hindus they are making a very gross misrepresentation of a religion which is far more scientific than their own. Hinduism, like every other religion, knows perfectly well that there can be only one God, though there may be countless manifestations of Him. p. 129
 * C.W. Leadbeater, in  The Inner Life (1917)

 * The images of the Indian deities are usually highly magnetized, and when they are carried round the streets at the festivals their influence upon the people is unquestionably productive of much good. In many of the Hindu temples there are strong permanent influences at work, as is the case for example at Madura. Once when I visited that city some white ashes from the temple of Shiva were given to me, and also a bright crimson powder from the temple of Parvati, and I found that both of these were so powerfully magnetized as to retain their influence for some years and after much travelling. India is essentially a country of rites and ceremonies. The religion is full of them, and a great many of them are said to have been prescribed by the Manu Himself, though it is quite obvious that many others have been added at a much later date. p. 130
 * C.W. Leadbeater, in  The Inner Life (1917)

 * The civilization of India, at root purely religious, is only now becoming known in Europe; and as the mystery surrounding it is unveiled it emerges as one of the highest achievement in the history of mankind. By the very breadth of the outlook it affords on to the destiny of man the Vedic religion offers in abundance the spiritual experience that has inspired the Indian people since the dawn of their history. The vocation of India is to proclaim to the world the efficacy of religious experience.
 * Solange Lemaître in Hinduism (1959), p. 9; also quoted in A Tribute to Hinduism : Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time about India and Her Culture (2008), p. 120

 * From Persia to the Chinese Sea, 'from the icy regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization.
 * Sylvain Levi, Ithihaasa: The Mystery of His Story Is My Story of History, p. 612

 * She has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim in universal history the rank that ignorance has refused her for a long time and to hold her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity.
 * Sylvain Levi,  Ithihaasa: The Mystery of His Story Is My Story of History, p. 612

M

 * We possess, in the sacred and secret books of India, of which we know only an infinitesimal part, a cosmogony which no European conception has ever surpassed.
 * Maurice Maeterlinck, in Mountain Paths (1919)

 * We cannot tell how the religion of the Hindus came into being. When we become aware of it, we find it already complete in its broad outlines, its main principles. Not only is it complete, but the farther back we go, the more perfect it is, the more unadulterated, the more closely related to the loftiest speculations of our modern agnosticism.
 * Maurice Maeterlinck, source: The Great Secret, Count Maurice Maeterlinck. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * He sometimes spoke of "zero" as the symbol of the absolute (Nirguna Brahman) of the extreme monistic school of Hindu philosophy, that is, the reality to which no qualities can be attributed, which cannot be defined or described by words and which is completely beyond the reach of the human mind. According to Ramanujan the appropriate symbol was the number "zero" which is the absolute negation of all attributes.
 * Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, on ideas of Srinivasa Ramanujan, as quoted in Crippled Minds: An Exploration Into Colonial Culture (1982) by Susantha Goontilake, p. 317

 * [I]t must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more than a mere form of theism resting on Brāhmanism. It presents for our investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which in its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering together of the mighty volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spreading itself over an ever-increasing area of country and finally resolving itself into an intricate Delta of tortuous steams and jungly marshes. … The Hindu religion is a reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many. It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, and has carried on the process of adaptation through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creeds.
 * Monier Monier-Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India (1883), p. 57.

 * The Hindus worship only one God. At any religious function, the Hindus utter the dominion of one God and to Him they direct the offerings of every religious ritual or observance whatever be its form. It is only fools who call the Hindus as idolators on the ground that they offer their devotion through some image built of stone or wood.
 * Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, quoted by, The Essence of Hinduism, p. 47

 * Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 1500 B.C.E. or 15,000 B.C.E., they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature of the world. They tell us something of the early growth of the human mind of which we find no trace anywhere else.
 * Max Muller, in The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy (1899)

N

 * The key Hindu concept of dharma — the right way, the sanctioned way, which all men must follow, according to their natures — is an elastic concept. At its noblest it combines self-fulfillment and truth to the self with the ideas of action as duty, action as its own spiritual reward, man as a holy vessel.
 * Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, India: A Wounded Civilization

 * From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense. Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust.
 * Nostra aetate, "Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-christian religions", October 28, 1965.

O

 * The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom.
 * Julius Robert Oppenheimer

P
The Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr once wrote, “I go into the Upanishads to ask questions,” and the Upanishads, the midwife birthing early Hinduism out of Vedic religion, ask these questions with even more urgency than Don Quixote or Holden Caulfield. Often ignoring and sometimes attacking the ritual obsessions of the Vedas, Hinduism’s homeless sages preoccupied themselves with philosophy instead.
 * Today young people and adults in both Europe and the United States shuffle from day to day and year to year imprisoned in roles assigned to them by families, friends, and employers. But who am I really? What is my true self?
 * Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One : The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter (2010), Ch, 4 : Hinduism : The Way of Devotion, p. 144

R

 * Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition that can not be defined but is only to be experienced. Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love.
 * Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, in his preface to an edition of the Bhagavad Gita

 * If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India....For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * Let us return to our eagle's nest in the Himalayas. It is waiting for us, for it is ours, eaglets of Europe, we need not renounce any part of our real nature...whence we formerly took our flight.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * The vast and tranquil metaphysics of India is unfolded; her conception of the universe, her social organization, perfect in its day and still capable of adaptation to the demands of modern times; the solution which she offers for the feminist problem, for the problems of the family, of love, of marriage; and lastly, the magnificent revelation of her art. The whole vast soul of India proclaims from end to end of its crowded and well ordered edifice the same domination of a sovereign synthesis." There is no negation. All is harmonized. All the forces of life are grouped like a forest, whose thousand waving arms are led by Nataraja, the master of the Dance. Everything has its place, every being has its function, and all take part in the divine concert, their different voices, and their very dissonances, creating, in the phrase of Heraclitus, a most beautiful harmony. Whereas in the West, cold, hard logic isolates the unusual, shutting it off from the rest of life into a definite and distinct compartment of the spirit. India, ever mindful of the natural differences in souls and in philosophies, endeavors to blend them into each other, so as to recreate in its fullest perfection the complete unity. The matching of opposites produces the true rhythm of life.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * Of course, this entire fabric of Indian life stands solidly on faith, that is to say, on a slender and emotional hypothesis. But amid all the beliefs of Europe, and of Asia, that of the Indian Brahmins seems to me infinitely the most alluring. And the reason why I love the Brahmin more than the other schools of Asiatic thought is because it seems to me to contain them all. Greater than all European philosophies, it is even capable of adjusting itself to the vast hypotheses of modern science. Our Christian religions have tried in vain, when there were no other choice open to them, to adapt themselves to the progress of science. But after having allowed myself to be swept away by the powerful rhythm of Brahmin thought, along the curve or life, with its movement of alternating ascent and return, I come back to my own century, and while finding therein the immense projections of a new cosmogony, offspring of the genius of Einstein, or deriving freely from the discoveries, I yet do not feel that I enter a strange land. I yet can hear resounding still the cosmic symphony of all those planets which forever succeed each other, are extinguished and once more illumined, with their living souls, their humanities, their gods – according to the laws of the eternal To Become, the Brahmin Samsara – I hear Siva dancing, dancing in the heart of the world, in my own heart.
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

 * In the great philosophy of Brahma, such violent turns of the scale are quite unknown. It embraces vast stretches of time, cycles of human ages, whose successive lives gravitate in concentric circles, and travel ever slowly towards the center....
 * Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

S

 * The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.
 * Carl Sagan in:

 * The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed.
 * Carl Sagan, in Cosmos, p . 213 -214

 * A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.
 * Carl Sagan, in Cosmos, p . 213 -214

 * This life of yours which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world."
 * Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World (1961)

 * The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on super imposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.
 * Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World (1961)

 * Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.
 * Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World (1961)

 * Hinduism is not a religion; it is just a way of life that thousands of Rishis have written about. It is such a democratic religion where everybody has the freedom to think, write or say whatever they want. We have no opposition for any other philosophy coming into us. We have no opposition for the Bible to be part of our own study. Nobody here will say, 'If you read the Bible, you will go to hell'. It is an inclusive way of looking at life, and that is what we need in the world today. We have no objection taking food from every part of the world, listening to music from every part of the world. So we need to globalize wisdom too.
 * Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 * Indian astronomers had calculated that life started 1 billion, 955 million, 818 thousand and 501 years ago and that 28 cycles of yugas have already happened. The ancient sages knew these facts. This is why they devised the mala (necklace) with 108 beads, which stand for the 12 constellations and the nine planets and the 108 different permutations which affect one's life." Everything is this universe is interconnected.
 * Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 * India conquered and dominated China culturally for twenty centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.... Never before had China seen a religion so rich in imagery, so beautiful and captivating in ritualism and so bold in cosmological and metaphysical speculations. Like a poor beggar suddenly halting before a magnificent storehouse of precious stones of dazzling brilliancy and splendor, China was overwhelmed, baffled and overjoyed. She begged and borrowed freely from this munificent giver. The first borrowings were chiefly from the religious life of India, in which China’s indebtedness to India can never be fully told.
 * Hu Shih.source: India and World Civilization, Damodar P. Singhal. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * After gradual research; I have come to the conclusion that long before all heavenly books, God had revealed to the Hindus, through the Rishis of yore, of whom Brahma was the Chief, His four books of knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Quran itself made veiled references to the Upanishads as the first heavenly book and the fountainhead of the ocean of monotheism.
 * Muhammad Dara Shikoh son of Moghul emperor, Shah Jahan, as quoted in Normative Prognosis (2011), p. 162

 * The apparent multiplicity of Gods is bewildering at the first glance; but you presently discover that they are all the same one God in different aspects and functions and even sexes. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendant God includes all possible Gods… In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the profoundest Methodist and the crudest idolator are equally at home in it.
 * George Bernard Shaw, in a letter to Rev. Ensor Walters (4th February 1933), Bernard Shaw : Collected Letters, 1926-1950 (1985), p. 322.

 * They have made present-day India, and Hinduism even more so, out to be a zoo – an agglomeration of assorted, disparate specimens. No such thing as ‘India’, just a geographical expression, just a construct of the British; no such thing as Hinduism, just a word used by Arabs to describe the assortment they encountered, just an invention of the communalists to impose a uniformity – that has been their stance... But Hinduism? Why, there is no such thing: it is just an aggregation, a pile of assorted beliefs and practices – ... And anyone who maintains anything to the contrary is a fascist out to insinuate a unity, indeed to impose a uniformity, where there has been none.... This is the continuance of, in a sense the culmination of, the Macaulay-Missionary technique. The British calculated that to subjugate India and hold it, they must undermine the essence of the people: this was Hinduism, and everything which flowed from it.
 * Arun Shourie (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers.

 * Hinduism’s cosmology was prodigious in scope and depth, but India did not stop there. She went on to advance what was probably the most daring hypothesis man has ever conceived. We ourselves are the infinite, the very infinite from which the Universe proceeds. Everything in Hinduism works to drive the point home... While the West was still thinking, perhaps, of a 6000-year-old universe—India was already envisioning ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the River Ganges. A universe so vast that modern astronomy slips into its folds without a ripple.
 * Huston Smith. source: The Soul of a People India and the Infinite, Huston Smith. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * Hinduism is like a great reservoir of water from which many streams take their rise and to which they again repair after passing through many strange and fair lands. It is a great, creative matrix giving birth to many beautiful and living forms. Itself a historical, it has given birth to many sects and branches with interesting, chequered histories. Paying sole allegiance to the Guide within seated in the cave of the heart, it has put forward from time to time many teachers and sages of incomparable power and vision, incarnating the very Gods above and within.
 * Ram Swarup (2000). On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections. Ch. 3.

 * The Vedic approach, is perhaps the best. It gives unity without sacrificing diversity. In fact, it gives a deeper unity and a deeper diversity beyond the power of ordinary monotheism and polytheism. It is one with the yogic and the mystic approach... In this deeper approach, the distinction is not between a true One God and false Many Gods; it is between a true way of worship and a false way of worship. Wherever there is sincerity, truth and self-giving in worship, that worship goes to the true altar by whatever name we may designate it and in whatever way we may conceive it. But if it is not desireless, if it has ego, falsehood, conceit and deceit in it, then it is unavailing though it may be offered to the most true God, theologically speaking.
 * Ram Swarup, The World As Revelation: Names of Gods.

T

 * Every Hindu may not be conscious of the finer points of his faith, but he has been raised in the tradition of its assumptions and doctrines, even when these have not been explained to him. His Hinduism may be a Hinduism of habit rather than a Hinduism of learning, but it is a lived Hinduism for all that.
 * Shashi Tharoor, Why I Am a Hindu (2018), p. 59.

 * In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.
 * Henry David Thoreau, Walden,

 * Belief in the Vedas, many means, no strict rule for worship: these are the features of the Hindu religion.
 * Bal Gangadhar Tilak, reproduced in V.D. Savarkar: Hindutva, and quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

 * It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to 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 is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.
 * Arnold J. Toynbee,

 * So now we turn to India. This spiritual gift, that makes a man human, is still alive in Indian souls. Go on giving the world Indian examples of it. Nothing else can do so much to help mankind to save itself from destruction.
 * Arnold J. Toynbee,

 * There may or may not be only one single absolute truth and only one single ultimate way of salvation. We do not know. But we do know that there are more approaches to truth than one, and more means of salvation than one.’’‘‘This is a hard saying for adherents of the higher religions of the Judaic family (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is a truism for Hindus. The spirit of mutual good-will, esteem, and veritable love … is the traditional spirit of the religions of the Indian family. This is one of India’s gifts to the world.
 * Arnold J. Toynbee,

 * At the close of this century, the world would be dominated by the West, but that in the 21st century "India will conquer her conquerors."
 * Arnold J. Toynbee, Development Planning for Agriculture: Policies, Economic Implications, p. 39

 * Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined.
 * Mark Twain, Through Indian Eyes, p. 113

 * It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.
 * Mark Twain, Through Indian Eyes

 * India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soul.
 * Mark Twain, Through Indian Eyes

 * Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.
 * Mark Twain, Through Indian Eyes

 * "Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speak, grandmother of legacy, great grandmother of tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having seen once even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined."
 * Mark Twain, Through Indian Eyes

V

 * 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.
 * Swami Vivekananda, Address at the Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago (1893)

 * I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, — astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe.
 * Voltaire, Lettres sur l'origine des sciences et sur celle des peuples de l'Asie (1777), letter of (15 December 1775)

W

 * To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.
 * Alan Watts, The Greatness of Ancient India's Developments

 * It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when Western civilization discovers Relativity it applies it to the manufacture of atom-bombs, whereas this Oriental civilization applies it to the development of new states of consciousness.
 * Alan Watts, The Greatness of Ancient India's Developments

 * Ordinarily, the propagation of Hinduism occurs in approximately the following way. ... Native deities are rebaptized with the names of Hindu gods and goddesses. ... Some Brahman is requested to provide and take charge of ritual concerns and thereby also to convince himself and provide testimony to the fact that they—the rulers of the tribe—were of ancient, only temporarily forgotten, knightly (Kshatriya) blood.
 * Max Weber, The Religion of India, pp. 9-10

 * Legitimation by a recognized religion has always been decisive for an alliance between politically and socially dominant classes and the priesthood. Integration into the Hindu community provided such religious legitimation for the ruling stratum. It not only endowed the ruling stratum of the barbarians with recognized rank in the cultural world of Hinduism, but, through their transformation into castes, secured their superiority over the subject classes with an efficiency unsurpassed by any other religion.
 * Max Weber, The Religion of India, p. 16

Z

 * In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me.'
 * Robert R. C. Zaehner in

 * If only the Church had the sense to allow so many different and seemingly contradictory approaches to God, how much saner its history would have been!
 * Robert R. C. Zaehner,

 * It was the sublime ancient tolerance of Hinduism that he often stressed, that was the true proof of the wisdom and mature dignity of the Hindu tradition.
 * Robert R. C. Zaehner,

title: Hinduism


text:
Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir (Jan. 26, 1884 – Feb. 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist and linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and a pioneer of concepts in linguistic relativity as a creator of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He is arguably the most influential figure in American linguistics.

Quotes

 * Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but (more) non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in store for us. … It seems to me that only now that is American linguistics becoming really interesting, at least in its ethnological bearings.
 * In a letter dated August 1, 1918

 * Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
 * The Status Of Linguistics As A Science (1929), p. 69
 * Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.
 * Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932), p. 515

 * It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.
 * "American Indian Grammatical Categories", edited by Morris Swadesh in Word, 2 (1946)

Language (1921)
Edward Sapir. Language (1921)

 * Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.
 * p. 39

 * Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
 * As cited in: Geza Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, London 1956. footnote pp. 126-127; As cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 313-314

Fashion (1931)
Edward Sapir, Fashion (1931),

 * Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.
 * p. 140

 * Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive — that is, as immodest — as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.
 * p. 140

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Edward Sapir


text:
Talk:Hinduism

If anyone know more Quotes, Plz add.
 * This page is huge it needs some help--Seadog.M.S 23:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * you can add more from philosophers like Schopenhauer, Voltaire, Max Muller and many more German philosophers and make it a much longer page. But there are two problems: first there are many people who would not be able to digest such an extraordinary praise of Hinduism. So they will say that these are unsourced even if you give book-name and page number of the book. You will have to scan the image of the referred page and title cover of the book:-). Even that may not be enough, they will then say that the article has become too long, you can keep the 25 best quotes you like. You will sure end up in lot of trouble by quoting these big people in praise of Hinduism.

Hinduism is polytheistic
Apples and oranges are one and the same because they are fruits?!! Yes, there is a godly power of Brahman that is one which plays the role of our "fruit."

Still, one has Ganesh, Ram, Hanuman, and many other gods.--Inesculent 15:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I changed the introduction of the article to the one currently used at Wikipedia. The previous 2 introductions had labeled Hinduism as monistic and then polytheistic, and both labels are incorrect when applied as definitive statements.

 * Personally, I avoid labeling any person or group as primarily polytheistic, montheistic or atheistic unless they clearly embrace such designations themselves, and even then I often remain reserved in my own opinions. Many of the distinctions and assumptions people are prone to make based upon such labels are often far more illusory than real.

 * Though there are diverse strands of mystical and devotional traditions in all major religions, "Hinduism" far more than most is manifestly a "big-tent" label. To characterize many followers of Vedanta and some other largely monistic, agnostic or even ultimately atheistic traditions within the Hindu fold as fundamentally polytheistic, merely because many might accept the notion of multiple "devas" or "gods" at work within reality, is rather simplistic in it semantic presumptions; it is in many ways akin to simply designating any traditional Muslim, Christian, or Jew as fundamentally polytheistic if they believe in such lower orders of "supernatural" beings such as those which are called "angels" "demons" and "djinn", or perhaps even more similarly, any trinitarian Christian who endorses some of the ideas of 3 "persons" composing one Godhead. The fundamental ambiguity in the way people attach the same words to different meanings and similar meanings to various words make the significance and worth of many assertions and designations very malleable and ambiguous. What concepts "person", "god", "devas" and such words indicate are often extremely variable, even among nominal co-adherents of particular creeds.'''

 * I am well aware of the diverse and simplistic assumptions that many people make when using particular labels and words, thus I myself am rarely resentful of what I perceive to be largely false or flawed assumptions at work, but it still can be very frustrating when so many people are prone to think of their own use of words and expressions as absolutely correct and well thought out because they are comfortable with their own definitions and assumptions, and all other uses (by others similarly comfortable with their own definitions and assumptions) as absolutely wrong and foolish.

 * Words are often necessary and vitally important tools of communication; they are rarely if ever absolutely perfect, incorruptible and totally reliable tools, no matter how sufficient they may seem, or even indispensable they may sometimes be. ~ Kalki 17:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

So "There are no facts, only interpretations"?

 * Jesus of Nazareth is thought by some Christians to be a different manifestation of an ultimate being called Jehovah. Jehovah is a not an ethereal force but a being.  What invisible being--not some force or permeant--are Ganesh, Rama, and Hanuman manifestations of?  Even Ishvara is a "philosophical concept." --Inesculent 02:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Ishvara
My investigation has revealed that Ishvara is an idol of the god Shiva. It highly doubt the accuracy of the Ishvara article at Wikipedia; I, further, recant that Ishvara is a "philosophical concept." I suspect certain Islamic people with an unrepentant and let-me-grab-your-collar-and-sock-you-because-there-is-nothing-in-this-world-except-monotheism attitude have hijacked and distorted some articles on Hinduism.--Inesculent 23:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed "further reading" related entry
Removed entry related to "further reading", per community consensus as expressed at Village Pump. -- Cirt (talk) 23:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced or inadequately sourced

 * The invisible excludes nothing, the invisible that excludes nothing is the infinite – the soul of India is the infinite.
 * Huston Smith.

 * Philosophers tell us that the Indians were the first ones to conceive of a true infinite from which nothing is excluded. The West shied away from this notion. The West likes form, boundaries that distinguish and demarcate. The trouble is that boundaries also imprison – they restrict and confine.
 * Huston Smith.

 * India saw this clearly and turned her face to that which has no boundary or whatever.India anchored her soul in the infinite seeing the things of the world as masks of the infinite assumes – there can be no end to these masks, of course. If they express a true infinity. And It is here that India’s mind boggling variety links up to her infinite soul.
 * Huston Smith.

 * India includes so much because her soul being infinite excludes nothing.” It goes without saying that the universe that India saw emerging from the infinite was stupendous.”
 * Huston Smith[].

 * While the West was still thinking, perhaps, of 6,000 years old universe – India was already envisioning ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. The Universe so vast that modern astronomy slips into its folds without a ripple.
 * Huston Smith[].

 * What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading through some far stratum in the sky.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I am at it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * The Vedas contain a sensible account of God.The veneration in which the Vedas are held is itself a remarkable feat. Their code embraced the whole moral life of the Hindus and in such a case there is no other truth than sincerity. Truth is such by reference to the heart of man within, not to any standard without.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * The Hindus are most serenely and thoughtfully religious than the Hebrews. They have perhaps a purer, more independent and impersonal knowledge of God. Their religious books describes the first inquisitive and contemplative access to God.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * One sentence of the Bhagavad Gita, is worth the State of Massachusetts many times over.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * Most books belong to the house and streets only, . . . .But this(Bhagavad Gita) . . . . addresses what is deepest and most abiding in man. . . . Its truth speaks freshly to our experience. [the sentences of Manu] are a piece with depth and serenity and I am sure they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.
 * Henry David Thoreau.

 * It is sublime as night and a breathless ocean. It contains every religious sentiment, all the grand ethics which visit in turn each noble poetic mind....
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 * The Indian teaching, through its clouds of legends, has yet a simple and grand religion, like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak truth, love others, and to dispose trifles. The East is grand - and makes Europe appear the land of trifles. ...all is soul and the soul is Vishnu.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 * All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany is now acquiring the right theory - the avatars of Brahman will presently be the text-books of natural history.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson.

My work attributed to someone else
In 2011, I purchased the domain Hinduisms.info and wrote a short article on the site (archived copy). I had planned on expanding the site. However, owing to time constraint, I abandoned it. Eight years on, I now see an excerpt from the article attributed to Girilal Jain on this page. The quote in question:

"The tenets of Hinduism are derived mainly from the holiest of scripture, The Bhagavad Gita, or Song Of God. The text is centered around the conversation between the mighty warrior Arjuna, who was torn with grief over the impending battle with his kinsman, and Krshna, a manifestation of the Creator, who revealed Himself to Arjuna on the battle ground of Kuruksetra in 3137 BCE just moments before the fighting commenced. What transpired was an epic discourse on humanity, our place in the universe, the spiritual and societal obligations that each of us shoulders – all framed in a poetic and philosophical style than takes our breath away even now. Numerous sentences, phrases and ideas from the Bhagavad Gita have since found its way into many contemporary and extinct religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and many more."

Obviously, I no longer have control of the domain. However, if it really comes down to it, I can tie the Google Analytics code to my account. But that's besides the point, which is, the quote did not originate from Girilal Jain.

 * Thank you for this comment. I have removed the quote. --ΞΔΞ (talk) 09:59, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

 * Much appreciated. --Ratha K (talk) 08:04, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hinduism


text:
User talk:66.65.219.224

~ UDScott 16:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:66.65.219.224


text:
User talk:Kelly051190~enwikiquote

~ UDScott 16:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Kelly051190. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Kelly051190~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:28, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:51, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Kelly051190~enwikiquote


text:
User talk:69.140.159.90

Just a few notes on your additions to Yeats: Though peoms from 1904 are no longer under copyright, and thus whole poems can be used without copyright worries, we generally prefer short quotations of statements here, even when using such older sources. I realize that in some cases the entire poem is a single coherent statement, that cannot always be broken up into simpler statements, but usually this is not the case. Whole poems that are no longer under copyright can be added to Wikisource, though they aren't as liberal in allowing bolding for emphasis as we are here, and prefer typography to always remain closer to the original form. ~ Achilles † 23:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:69.140.159.90


text:
User talk:64.229.184.140

~ Kalki 23:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:64.229.184.140


text:
User talk:Wandering Angus~enwikiquote

Just a few notes on your additions to Yeats: Though peoms from 1904 are no longer under copyright, and thus whole poems can be used without copyright worries, we generally prefer short quotations of statements here, even when using such older sources. I realize that in some cases the entire poem is a single coherent statement, that cannot always be broken up into simpler statements, but usually this is not the case. Whole poems that are no longer under copyright can be added to Wikisource, though they aren't as liberal in allowing bolding for emphasis as we are here, and prefer typography to always remain closer to the original form. ~ Achilles † 23:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Wandering Angus. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Wandering Angus~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:39, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Wandering Angus~enwikiquote


text:
Talk:Sonic the Hedgehog

Looks pretty clean here. And Doctor Eggman is merged with Sonic the Hedgehog.

WikiQuote isn't censored for minors. Stop censoring the "bad words" cause they don't actually exist here.

Are things like 'Hah!' and 'Umph!' really memorable quotes???--201.196.64.142 23:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

what?
When does Rouge say "so this is the ultimate lifefrom" in Shadow the hedgehog is that in the expert mode

sometimes she says it when shadow attacks, along with other phrases

Removed the Brawl section.
Brawl isn't a "Sonic" game, just one with Sonic in it.

Hey sonic wanna hang out ?😉

Vandalism
Keep an eye out on Sonic's quotes here. I spotted vandalism involving obscenely vulgar words. 12:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC) White Mage Cid

I don't see any vandalism here. Just a page full of billions of quotes so quit worrying about whats going to happen to the page because the Admins will take care of the vandalism if this page is vandalized.(StarWarsFanBoy 22:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC))

- Removed "The Fallen" quotes from the Sonic 2006 section, where most of the lines were obviously just adapted from Revenge of the Fallen. 92.41.217.165 17:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Sonic Free Riders
I added some dialogue from Sonic Free Riders - I got the sound files from YouTube. I don't have the game itself so if anyone would/could add in quotes they yell out while racing, it'd be appreciated.

--Alright, decided just to take it upon myself to add in more quotes, after all. I don't have the game at home so I'm just leeching off YouTube videos. Since my computer's audio is - simply put - crap, it'd be great if someone could correct and add in more quotes for Shadow, Rouge and the rest of those crazy kids.

Article to Long?
It seems to me that this article is way too long. I copied it into Microsoft Word, it came to 96 pages!!! Jdaniels15 (talk) 17:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Omg it is a honor
Hey sonic I am Daniel garland and I love your 2 movies so I have some questions.

Did knuckles actually crushed your hand?

Is Eggman actually dead?

In your next film can you turn into the werehog?

And knuckles I have a question for you

Did you liked playing baseball with sonic and tails? 2601:CF:4780:EBA0:A0C8:4AC7:69F2:308C 23:27, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sonic the Hedgehog


text:
User:Grumpykansan~enwikiquote

I am a librarian in Kansas.

title: User:Grumpykansan~enwikiquote


text:
User:205.188.117.73

I <3Cookies

title: User:205.188.117.73


text: User:Kross

title: User:Kross


text:
Red Dawn

Red Dawn is a 1984 movie about a fictional Soviet invasion of the United States of America.
 * Directed by John Milius. Written by John Milius and Kevin Reynolds.

In our time, no foreign army has ever occupied American soil. Until now.

Jed Eckert

 * [While giving guns to newly freed prisoners] C'mon! We're all going to die, die standing up!

Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Tanner

 * [talks to the teenagers over their supplies] You think you're tough for eating beans every day? There's half a million scarecrows in Denver who'd give anything for one mouthful of what you got. They've been under siege for about three months. They live on rats and sawdust bread and sometimes... on each other. At night, the pyres for the dead light up the sky. It's medieval.

Colonel Strelnikov

 * [briefing Soviet Army officers and troops about the Wolverines; in Russian] What I despise most about warfare, is the hypocrisy it often breeds. I've heard euphemisms that we are 'containing the enemy', that our 'sector of pacification is growing'. These are the tactics of the lie. Lies have the stench of death and defeat. You can only win a war by exterminating the enemy! Do you know who we are fighting? [points to board] We are fighting Wolverines: small, ferocious animals. For them, you need a hunter. And you know, I am a hunter. From this moment on, there will be no further reprisals against civilians. This was stupid. Impotence. Comrades, if a fox stole your chickens, would you slaughter your pig because he saw the fox? No! You would hunt down the fox, find where it lives and destroy it! How do we do this? Become a fox.

Dialogue

 * [During the evening battle, when a KGB Major approaches Col. Bella]
 * KGB Major: Do you want to see me?
 * Colonel Bella: Yes ... yes. Go to the sporting goods store. From the files, obtain forms 4473. These will contain descriptions of weapons, and lists of private ownership.

 * [The Eckerts head to the mountains with some friends]
 * Jed Eckert: Matt and I have been coming up to these mountains with our dad our whole lives. We can hunt, we can fish, we can stay up here a long, long time.
 * Robert: How long, Jed?
 * Jed Eckert: [indicating the jets above them] Until we don't hear that no more.

 * [Cuban Army Col. Bella and Soviet Army General Bratchenko go for a walk outside the local Soviet-American Friendship Center]
 * General Bratchenko: What is a "Wolverine"?
 * Colonel Bella: A small animal...like a badger, but terribly ferocious. It is also the name of the local school sports collective.
 * Bratchenko: They're beasts, Ernesto. You must kill every one of them eventually. It's the same as Afghanistan. They'll never stop.
 * Bella: Look. I was always on the side of the insurgents. I have no experience in these matters. But it would seem necessary to win the support of the people. As our opponents used to say in Vietnam: "Win their hearts and minds."
 * Bratchenko: And they lost, Ernesto.
 * Bella: Of course, General.
 * Bratchenko: Things are paralyzed at the front, Ernesto. Morale is crucial right now. Keep the men in the secured areas. You'll see how they forget about these [to Bella in disdain] "Wolverines."
 * [the Soviet-American Friendship Center explodes behind them; a Nicaraguan Army captain runs up to them]
 * Nicaraguan Captain: [to Colonel Bella] Are you all right?!
 * Bella: [gesturing impatiently to others fallen nearby] Yes, yes, help them! [to Bratchenko] You were saying, comrade? Huh?!
 * Bratchenko: Shut up!

 * [When Lieutenant Colonel Tanner is first found]
 * Erica Mason: You American?
 * Col. Andrew Tanner: [Indicating the American flag on his flight suit] Red-blooded.
 * Mason: What's the capital of Texas?
 * Tanner: Austin.
 * Mason: [proceeds to kick Col. Tanner; racking the bolt on her AK-47] Wrong, commie; it's Houston!
 * Tanner: Easy, darlin'! I'm cold... and you've seen too many movies!

 * Col. Tanner: You the honcho, sport?
 * Jed: Who're you?
 * Col. Tanner: Andrew Tanner, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force.
 * Jed: How'd you get yourself shot down, Colonel?
 * Tanner: It was five to one. I got four.
 * [Jed smiles and shakes hands with Tanner]
 * Jed: I'm Jed.
 * Col. Tanner: How you doing, Jed?
 * Jed: Good as can be.

 * [Col. Tanner explains the war situation using the campfire as a representation of the US]
 * Col. Tanner: [gestures to parts of the campfire] West Coast, East Coast. Down here's Mexico. First wave of the attack came in disguised as commercial charter flights, same way they did in Afghanistan in '80. They were crack airborne outfits. They took these passes in the Rockies.
 * Jed: So that's what hit Calumet?
 * Col. Tanner: I guess so. They coordinated with selective nuke strikes, and the missiles were a hell of a lot more accurate than we thought; they took out the silos here in the Dakotas, key points of communication.
 * Darryl: Like what?
 * Col. Tanner: Oh, like Omaha, Washington, Kansas City.
 * Darryl: Gone?
 * Col. Tanner: Yeah. That's right.
 * Darryl: Jesus Christ.
 * Col. Tanner: Infiltrators, came up illegal; Cubans, mostly. They managed to infiltrate SAC bases in the Midwest, several down in Texas, wreaked a hell of a lot of havoc, I'm here to tell. They opened up the door, and the whole Cuban and Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains.
 * Robert: How far'd they get?
 * Col. Tanner: Cheyenne, across to Kansas. We held 'em at the Rockies, and at the Mississippi. Anyway, the Russians reinforced with 60 divisions. Sent three whole army groups across the Bering Strait into Alaska, cut the pipeline, came across Canada, link up here in the middle but we stopped 'em but cold. Lines've pretty much stabilized now.
 * Matt Eckert: What about Europe?
 * Col. Andrew Tanner: I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out. All except England, and they won't last very long. The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that's why they're here now. That's why they won't use nukes anymore, and we won't either, not on our own soil. Whole damn thing's pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.
 * Darryl: What started it?
 * Col. Tanner: Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later they gonna fight.
 * Jed: That simple?
 * Col. Tanner: Maybe somebody just forgot what it was like.
 * Jed: Well, who is on our side?
 * Tanner: Six hundred million screamin' Chinamen.
 * Darryl: Well, last I heard, there were a billion screamin' Chinamen.
 * Tanner: There were. [throws whiskey into fire, and it violently ignites for a moment, possibly signifying a Soviet nuclear strike on China]

 * [Robert is scratching tally marks for communist soldiers he has killed on his AK when Colonel Tanner passes by]
 * Col. Andy Tanner: All that hate is gonna burn you up kid.
 * Robert Morris: It keeps me warm.

 * [The gang prepares to kill a Soviet Spetsnaz commando and their friend, Daryl Bates, who was forced to swallow a homing device that led the Spetsnaz to them]
 * Jed Eckert: Do you want blindfolds?
 * Stepan Gorsky: This violates the Geneva Convention!
 * Eckert: I never heard of it!
 * Gorsky: Dogface! I show you how Soviet dies.
 * Robert: I've seen it before, pal.
 * Danny: This isn't happening! Jed, let him go! He was one of us!
 * Jed Eckert: Shut up, Danny! Shut up!
 * Robert: He told them where we were!
 * Jed Eckert: He did. Now get your rifles.
 * Matt Eckert: No!
 * Jed: WHAT DID YOU SAY?
 * Matt: We're not doing it!
 * Gorsky: [to Daryl] Boy, say at me you are friend, so I will not die alone.
 * Matt: What's the difference, Jed?
 * Robert: I'll do it.
 * Matt: Shut up, Robert! [to Jed] Tell me what's the difference between us and them!
 * Jed: Because ... we live here! [kills Gorsky and when he hesitates with Daryl, Robert kills him]

Cast

 * Patrick Swayze - Jed Eckert
 * C. Thomas Howell - Robert Morris
 * Lea Thompson - Erica Mason
 * Charlie Sheen - Matt Eckert
 * Darren Dalton - Daryl Bates
 * Jennifer Grey - Toni Mason
 * Brad Savage - Danny Bates
 * Doug Toby - Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon
 * Powers Boothe - Lt. Col. Andrew "Andy" Tanner, USAF
 * Ben Johnson - Mr. Jack Mason
 * Harry Dean Stanton - Tom Eckert
 * Ron O'Neal - Colonel Ernesto Bella
 * William Smith - Colonel Strelnikov
 * Vladek Sheybal - General Bratchenko
 * Frank McRae - Mr. Teasdale
 * Roy Jenson - Mr. Samuel Morris
 * Pepe Serna - Mr. Mondragón
 * Lane Smith - Mayor Bates
 * Judd Omen - Nicaraguan Captain
 * Radames Pera - Sgt. Stepan Gorsky

title: Red Dawn


text:
User:Holy Ganga~enwikiquote

Holy Ganga

Count my edits (wikipedia), edits (wikiquote)

{| width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="10" style="background-color:99CC99; border-style:none; border-width:3px; border-color:#b2a4c5;"
 * align="center" width="100%" style="border-style:solid; border-width:3; border-color:#80737C; background-color:#F6E6AE; color:#000000;"|"When I read the Bhagavad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." — Albert Einstein

title: User:Holy Ganga~enwikiquote


text:
User talk:68.206.242.24

Incidents of deliberate vandalism have resulted in this IP address being temporarily blocked from editing. ~ Kalki 13:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:68.206.242.24


text:
User:JegaPRIME~enwikiquote

JegaPRIME

title: User:JegaPRIME~enwikiquote