Galaxy of Great Thoughts: Wisdom Through the Ages

By M. Varatharajulu

A legend in his lifetime as an administrator and agriculturist, and a voracious reader and man of the arts, M. Varatharajulu compiled a lifetime of experience and wisdom in this simple but profound collection of wisdom from across all time. He has drawn material from a wide variety of sources-scriptures, songs, speeches, classic literature, academic discourse-and sometimes from people holding strongly contrary opinions to give a sense of the range and diversity of opinions in the world. Organised alphabetically by theme, and covering a wide range of diverse subjects, ranging from adjustment to vengeance, this book is a compendium of all wisdom through the ages, distilled by a keen mind. One can dip into it for wisdom and to find material for reflection on almost any topic in the contemporary world. That is what makes this book invaluable and a virtual library in itself, as it contains history, biography, poetry, philosophy and spiritualism distilled into these pages. The wisdom contained between the covers of this book will encourage you to live your life to the fullest. Begin each day with a powerful dose of wisdom and inspiration to overcome fear, boost your self-esteem, create success, enjoy life, claim your inner strength, and make your dreams come true. To borrow from Socrates: Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Mar 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9789388134026

Book preview

Veda

ADAPTATION, ASSIMILATION,

ADJUSTMENT AND UNITY

THOUGHTS AND THEIR AUTHORS

I receive each devotee through the path he has chosen for himself.

—Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति।

ekaṃ sadviprā bahudhā vadanti ।

Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.

—Upanishidic Dictum

Prahlada, a demon boy, when he was offered liberation by God:

But I for myself do not want to be liberated alone, leaving these, poorer folk all to themselves.

My liberation is a contradiction in terms; if I want that I become wise and the others persist in ignorance; I would be thereby losing my liberation.

—Bhagavatam

I desire not the supreme state with all its perfections nor the release from re-birth; may I assume the sorrow of all creatures who suffer and enter into them, so that they may be made free from grief!

—Prayer of Rantideva, Bhagavatam

Whoever degrades another degrades me.

And whatsoever is said or done returns at last to me…

I speak the password primeval, I give the sign of democracy.

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have…on the same terms.

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

There is one set of dharmas for man in this Krita Yuga; a different set for each of the Treta, Dwapara and Kali Yugas; the dharmas change according to the change of the yugas.

—Manu Smriti

May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls, and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races.

—Swami Vivekananda

Arg.: Lord Krishna to Duryodhana when he went to Hastinapur, as ambassador extraordinary, to arbitrate between two royal families—the Kauravas and the Pandavas, and refused to be his guest:

Ambassadors eat and accept worship only after the success of their mission.

—Mahabharata, Udyoga Parva, Bhagavad (Krishna’s) Yana Canto

Arg.: The arbitration having failed, war broke out. As the charioteer of Arjuna, Lord Krishna informs him on the battlefield of Kurukshetra:

It is through action without attachment alone that Janaka and other wise men reached perfection.

Having an eye to the maintenance of the world order too, you should take to action.

For whatsoever a great man does, that very thing other men also do, whatever standard he sets up, the generality of men follow the same.

There is nothing in the three worlds for Me to do, nor is there anything worth attaining, unattained by Me, yet I continue to work.

Should I not engage in action unwearied at any time, great harm will come to the world; for men follow My path in all matters.

If I do not perform action, these worlds will perish; nay, I should be the author of confusion of castes (according to which allotted of work is done by men) and of the destruction of these people.

—Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, III, 20-24

The preferable and the pleasurable approach mankind. The man of intelligence, having considered them, separates the two. The intelligent one selects the electable in preference to the delectable; the non-intelligent one selects the delectable for the sake of growth and protection of the body, etc.

—Katha Upanishad, I, II, 2

Continuous re-adaptation to suit the whims of others undermines excellence.

—Confucius

A man can dignify his ranks. No rank can dignify a man.

—T.P. Atticus

Do not unto your neighbour what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole law, the rest is commentary.

—Rabbi Hillel

The seeming splendour of a career carried on without adjustment to means will suddenly disappear, leaving no vestige behind.

—Saint Thiruvalluvar

Be Ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

—Saint Mathew, Holy Bible V, 48

It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs… The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.

—Pliny the Elder

A small spark neglected has often kindled a mighty conflagration.

—Quintus Curtins

The divergence of the exegetists is a blessing.

—Islamic dictum

…‘Tis often seen adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds a native slip to us from foreign seeds;

—William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 3

Arg.: Hamlet, in his despondency to find out what should be done, after learning that his father was murdered and the kingdom usurped by his uncle:

To be or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

– To die, – to sleep, –

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

the heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,’ tis a consummation Devoutly to be wishe’d. To die, – to sleep; –

To sleep! Perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act III, Scene 1

…Counsel may stop a while what will not stay;

For when we rage, advice is often seen

By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

Now gives it satisfaction to our blood,

That we must curb it upon others’ proof,

To be forbid the sweets that seem so good,

For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.

O appetite from judgment stand aloof!

The one a palate hath that news will taste, though reason weep, and cry it is thy last.

—William Shakespeare, A Lover’s Complaint, V, 23-24

My flocks feel not,

My ewes breed not,

My rams speed not,

All is a miss:

Love is dying,

Faith’s defying,

Heart’s denying,

Causer of this.

All my merry jigs are quite forgot,

All my lady’s love is lost; God wot;

Where her faith was firmly fix’d in love.

There a nay is plac’d without remove.

One silly cross

Wrought all my loss;

O frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame:

For now I see,

Inconstancy.

More in women than in men remain.

—William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, V, 3

Let all the peoples walk each according to his name of God, and we shall walk in the name of the Lord—our God.

—Prophet Micah

Consider the birds in our forests; they praise God each in his own way, in diverse tones and fashions. Think your God is viewed by this diversity, and desires to silence discordant voices? All the forms of being are dear to the infinite Being Himself.

— Boehme Jacob

To those who ask why God did not so create all men that they should be governed only by reason, I reply only: because matter was not lacking to Him for the creation of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest, or more strictly because the laws of His nature were so ample as to suffice for the production of everything by an infinite intellect.

—B. Spinoza

To do as you would be done by, is the plan, sure, an undisputed rule of morality and justice.

—Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope

I will listen to anyone’s convictions but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

—J.W. von Goethe

Like clings to unlike more than to like…

—Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast.

—Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

We continually hear it recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbours (usually less well placed in the world than themselves), that they should remain content in the station in which Providence has placed them.

There are perhaps some circumstances of life in which Providence has no intention that people should be content. Nevertheless the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbour should, or should not, remain content with his position, is not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own.

—John Ruskin, Unto This Last

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he cannot afford it; and when can… In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

—Mark Twain

The tame elephants enjoy capturing the wild ones.

—George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.

—Oscar Wilde

Don’t cling to the old because it made you glad once; go on to the next, the next region, the next experience.

—Alfred North Whitehead

Difference is the sauce of life, it is the beauty, it is the art of everything. It is the variety that is the source of life, the sign of life. Unity is before creation, diversity is creation. Now if this diversity stops, creation will be destroyed.

—Swami Vivekananda

The whole universe is a tremendous case of unity in variety. There is only one mass of mind. Different states of that mind have different names. They are different little whirlpools in this ocean of mind. We are universal and individual at the same time. Thus is the play going on…In reality, this unity is never broken (Matter, mind, spirit are all one)…

—Swami Vivekananda

Sins are very low degrees of manifestation… The difference between weakness and strength is one of degree; the difference between virtue and vice is one of degree; the difference between heaven and hell is one of degree; the difference between life and death is one of degree; all differences in the world are of degrees and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

—Swami Vivekananda

Our earthly life consists in a continued adaptation to environments. A living substance is that which is capable of adapting itself to its surroundings and the very moment when it completely fails to do so, it is dead. The more perfect the adaptation, the more perfect is the manifestation of life. All vegetable, animal and human life is subject to this great law of adaptation. This law manifests itself and governs every step of the existence, growth, evolution and development of a living creature. That power by which an organism can adapt itself to its environments is not a mechanical power, not merely a chemical force, but it is what we understand by the word life-force or vital energy. Wherever there is the manifestation of this life-force, there is a natural tendency to bring a perfect harmony with the surrounding condition as well as with the laws that govern them. This tendency is to be found in all living beings, in every department of nature, whether vegetable, animal or human. Therefore, the fulfilment of this tendency, the establishment of a perfect harmony with the environment and obedience to the natural laws are implied in the meaning of adaptation, and these are the products of the life-force or vital energy.

—Swami Abhedananda

Anything is better than the possibility of being wrong.

—Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Detective Stories, ‘That Little Square Box’

Equality is of souls, not of bodies; of opportunities, not of capacity… Realize equality in the midst of this apparent inequality.

—M.K. Gandhi

Take always upon yourself every necessity for progress and resolve them all into the ecstasy of the unity. It is then that you will become divine.

—Aurobindo Ghose

A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices without any hope of doing it well.

—G.K. Chesterton

If human race has to preserve itself, it has to change. Not to change is to perish. If we resist change, if we do not reckon with time, we will be passing out with some other civilizations.

—S. Radhakrishnan

India beyond all doubt possesses a deep underlying fundamental unity, far more profound than that produced either by geographical isolation or by political suzerainty. The unity transcends the innumerable diversities of blood, colour, language, dress, manners, and sect.

—Vincent Smith

He that never changes his opinions and never corrects his mistakes will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

—T. Edwards

A person in whatever station of life may he be placed and whatever equipment he may possess, he should strive to progress from there without blaming the tools.

—Prabhu Shankara

Variety is the plan of nature, but not its law. Unity is the law, the only principle that man has to understand and learn by a steady pursuit of right knowledge, with an open and all-embracing heart.

—Swami Gambhirananda

The whole history of India for thousands of years past shows her essential unity and the vitality and adaptability of her culture.

—Jawaharlal Nehru

Address of Jawaharlal Nehru to the United Nations Assembly, September 1960:

Each country has something to give and something to take from others. The moment coercion is exercised, that country’s freedom is not only impaired, but also its growth suffers. We have to acknowledge that there is a great diversity in the world and that this diversity is good and is to be encouraged, so that each country may grow and its creative impulse might have full play in accordance with its own genius.

Hundreds and thousands of years of past history have conditioned us in our respective countries and our roots go deep down into the soil. If these roots are pulled out, we wither. But if these roots remain strong and we allow the winds from the four quarters to blow in upon us, then they will yield branch and flower and