Paul Carus > Quotes

“When a tree is burning with fierce flames, how can the birds congregate therein? Truth cannot dwell where passion lives. He who does not know this, though he be a learned man and be praised by others as a sage, is beclouded with ignorance.”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with fools. 43”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“Blessed is he who has found enlightenment. He conquers, although he may be wounded; he is glorious and happy, although he may suffer; he is strong, although he may break down under the burden of his work; he is immortal, although he may die. The essence of his being is purity and goodness.”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“Look about and contemplate life! 1 Everything is transient and nothing endures. There is birth and death, growth and decay; there is combination and separation. 2 The glory of the world is like a flower: it stands in full bloom in the morning and fades in the heat of the day. 3 Wherever you look, there is a rushing and a struggling, and an eager pursuit of pleasure. There is a panic flight from pain and death, and hot are the flames of burning desires. The world is vanity fair, full of changes and transformations.”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“Consisting of immortal Truth, you are immortal. The attainment of Truth is immortality, and to do the work of Truth is Nirvana.”
― Paul Carus

“Ye that are slaves of the self and toil in its service from morn until night, ye that live in constant fear of birth, old age, sickness, and death, receive the good tidings that your cruel master exists not. Self is an error, an illusion, a dream. Open your eyes and awaken. See things as they are and ye will be comforted. He who is awake will no longer be afraid of nightmares. He who has recognized the nature of the rope that seemed to be a serpent will cease to tremble.”
― Paul Carus, Buddha : his life and teachings

“There are ways from light into darkness and from darkness into light. There are ways, also, from the gloom into deeper darkness, and from the dawn into brighter light. The wise man will use the light he has to receive more fight. He will constantly advance in the knowledge of truth.32”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“The name Azazel is derived from aziz, which means strength, and El, God.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“People possessed of a lively imagination began to dream that they stood in all kinds of relations to the Evil One. There are cases in which imaginary witches surrendered themselves voluntarily to the Inquisition.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“There is a deep truth in this conception of Mara as Varsavarti. It means that the selfishness of man is Satan and the actual satisfaction of selfishness is Hell.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“The Jews also appropriated the figure of this solar hero in the shape of Samson whose strength is conditioned by his hair, as the power of the sun lies in his rays.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“is noteworthy that Satan, in the canonical books of the Old Testament, is an adversary of man, but not of God;”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“When the fire of lust is gone out, then Nirvāna is gained; when the fires of hatred and delusion are gone out, then Nirvāna is gained; when the troubles of mind, arising from blind credulity, and all other evils have ceased, then Nirvāna is gained!”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“Blessed is he who has found enlightenment. He conquers, although he may be wounded; he is glorious and happy, although he may suffer; he is strong, although he may break down under the burden of his work; he is immortal, although he may die. The essence of his being is purity and goodness. 14”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“The historical St. George, an archbishop of Alexandria and a follower of Arius, possesses no features whatever of the heroic dragon-slayer of the legend.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“that Chaldea was the original home of these stories and that the Jews received them originally from the Babylonians”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“The devotional spirit is not less intense among, the pagans of the prairie than it was among the ancient Israelites and the early Christians.[128]”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“the church doctrines of sin and salvation are based upon pre-Christian conceptions ultimately dating back to human sacrifices and the mystic rites of cannibalism in which man hoped to partake of divinity and immortality by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of his incarnated God or his representative.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Good and evil, however, are views taken from a certain given standpoint, and from this standpoint good and evil are features forming a contrast, but as such they are always actualities; neither the one nor the other”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Matthias Hopkins, commonly called “witchfinder general,” took advantage of the disorders of the English civil wars of the seventeenth century and made a special business of the discovery of witches. He was quite successful, until his own methods were tried on his own person, and as he did not sink in the water ordeal, the people declared him to be a wizard and slew him (1647).”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“While thus the Devil, having profited by experience, always insists upon having his rights insured by an unequivocal instrument (which in later centuries is signed with blood); he, in his turn, is fearlessly trusted to keep his promise, and this is a fact which must be mentioned to his honor, for although he is said to be a liar from the beginning, not one case is known, in all devil-lore in which the Devil attempts to cheat his stipulators. Thus”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“source. The legend of the deluge[14] agrees in all important details with the analogous story in Genesis.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Further, the legends of creation, of the tree of life, and of the deluge, mentioned in Genesis and also in Assyrian records, were well known to the Accadians, and from the conventional form of the tree of life, which in the most ancient pictures bears fir-cones, we may infer that the idea is an old tradition which the Accadians brought with them from their former and colder home”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“curious legend is extant respecting this king, to the effect that he was born in a city on the banks of the Euphrates, that his mother conceived him in secret and brought him forth in a humble place that she placed him in an ark of rushes and closed it with pitch that she cast him upon the river in the water-tight ark; that the river carried him along; that he was rescued by a man called Akki, who brought him up to his own trade; and that from this position the goddess Istar made him king.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Surrender the grasping disposition of selfishness, and you will attain to that calm state of mind which conveys perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom.”
― Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

“God is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, he is unmoral;”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Religion is the most important problem of life, and we can ignore it as little as a reckless storage of dynamite in crowded parts of great cities.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Every man’s conception of God is a measure of his own stature. He pictures God according to his comprehension, and thus it is natural that every man has a different notion of God, every one’s God being characteristic of his mental and moral caliber.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“Like the sixth avatar, the Rama Chandra avatar probably contains historical reminiscences. It also resembles both the Trojan War and the Gudrun Saga, the epics of Western nations that relate the story of an abducted wife.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

“for although he is said to be a liar from the beginning, not one case is known, in all devil-lore in which the Devil attempts to cheat his stipulators. Thus he appears as the most unfairly maligned person, and as a martyr of simple-minded honesty.”
― Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day