Quotes from 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?

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?

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.

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.

An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent.

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

Even a good man sees evil days, as long as his good deed has not ripened; but when his good deed has ripened, then does the good man see happy days.

The morning hour has gold at the mouth.

To me this technical acceptation seems not applicable here, where we have to deal with the simplest moral precepts, and not with psychological niceties of Buddhist philosophy.

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

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.

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.

The person who knows only one religion does not know any religion.

Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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