Max Muller Quotes & Sayings

Thus one memory follows another until the waves dash together over our heads, and a deep sigh swells the breast, which warns us that we have forgotten to breathe in the midst of these pure thoughts. — Max Muller

All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted, before the light of a high truth could meet with ready acceptance. — Max Muller

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love. — Max Muller

Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers. — Max Muller

The gospel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpretation of all revelation, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world. — Max Muller

The first pages of memory are like the old family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to grow clear and legible. — Max Muller

The evil done by oneself, self-begotten, self-bred, crushes the foolish, as a diamond breaks a precious stone. — Max Muller

Whoever knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that he who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole soul; with all his strength and with all his will. — Max Muller

There is no book in the world that is so thrilling, stirring and inspiring as the Upanishads. — Max Muller

The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise who control their mind, are indeed well controlled. — Max Muller

The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up. — Max Muller

When the evil deed, after it has become known, brings sorrow to the fool, then it destroys his bright lot, nay, it cleaves his head. — Max Muller

How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do, and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity! — Max Muller

Universities were not meant entirely, or even chiefly, as stepping-stones to an examination, but that there is something else which universities can teach and ought to teach-nay, which I feel quite sure they were originally meant to teach-something that may not have a marketable value before a Board of Examiners, but which has a permanent value for the whole of our life, and that is a real interest in our work, and, more than that, a love of our work, and, more than that, a true joy and happiness in our work ... — Max Muller

Would not the child's heart break in despair when the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like the soft reflection of divine light and love? — Max Muller

What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection from the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might almost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or the Creator without the creature? — Max Muller

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India. — Max Muller

Of these years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have advanced and only grown older. — Max Muller

And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life ... again I should point to India. — Max Muller

I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first time. — Max Muller

There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man. — Max Muller

I have declared again and again that if I say Aryans , I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language ... in that sense, and in that sense only, do I say that even the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians ... To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar. — Max Muller

Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a butterfly, and the butterfly dust? — Max Muller

Samskrit is the greatest language of the world. — Max Muller

I spend my happiest hours in reading Vedantic books. They are to me like the light of the morning, like the pure air of the mountains - so simple, so true, if once understood. — Max Muller

That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face. — Max Muller

Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language, or religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive art or primitive science, everywhere, you have to go to India, whether you like it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India, and in India only. — Max Muller

I was shortly again at the castle, and the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children, the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had known each other for years. — Max Muller

The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men. — Max Muller

He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with all other beings, he indeed is an ascetic. — Max Muller

It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others. — Max Muller

And then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when all men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling rises in the breast. — Max Muller

Soon the child learns that there are strangers, and ceases to be a child. — Max Muller

Would you say that any one sacred book is superior to all others in the world? ... I say the New Testament, after that, I should place the Koran , which in its moral teachings, is hardly more than a later edition of the New Testament. Then would follow according to my opinion the Old Testament, the Southern Buddhist Tripitaka , the Tao-te-king of Laotze , the Kings of Confucius , the Veda and the Avesta . — Max Muller

It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool. — Max Muller

In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries. — Max Muller

While the river of life glides along smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank seems to change. — Max Muller

Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord?. — Max Muller

Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who can explain them! — Max Muller

The morning hour has gold at the mouth. — Max Muller

Christianity is a missionary religion, converting, advancing, aggressive, encompassing the world; a non-missionary church is in the bands of death. — Max Muller

For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse. — Max Muller

I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street. — Max Muller

It is the heart that makes the critic, not the nose. — Max Muller

If an earnest person has roused himself, if he is not forgetful, if his deeds are pure, if he acts with consideration, if he restrains himself, and lives according to law,then his glory will increase. — Max Muller

All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for,-real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope. — Max Muller

That is the returning to God which in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases. — Max Muller

Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast. — Max Muller

As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again. — Max Muller

The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years. — Max Muller

No one who has not examined patiently and honestly the other religions of the world can know what Christianity really is, or can join with such truth and sincerity in the words of St. Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. — Max Muller

Yes, now I understood for the first time that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and that it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs, and buds to the light. — Max Muller

Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is. — Max Muller

The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind; but the odor of good people travels; even against the wind: a good man pervades every place. — Max Muller