One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved.
Romain RollandRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of unity and collaboration between cultures, specifically Europe and Asia, highlighting India's influential spirit.
Romain Rolland reflects on the significant potential that arises from bridging Eastern and Western cultures, suggesting that the wisdom and spirit of India can lead to profound transformations in the world. This unity of thoughts between Europe and Asia is portrayed as a noble ideal, where the essence of India's great soul could inspire and elevate humanity.
In practice
In a speech about cultural diplomacy, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of collaboration.
One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved.
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.
Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow.
Each man must learn his own ideal and try to accomplish it: that is a surer way of progress than to take the ideas of another.
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.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.
It is an in, a grave evil and a disturbance of the right order, for a larger and higher organisation, to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.
For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond Him - they will never yield Him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.
It is a poor reverie which invites a nap. One must even wonder whether, in this "failing asleep", the subconscious itself does not undergo a decline in being.
Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?
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