The reasons which governments give for wars are always screens, behind which lie completely different reasons and motives.
June 18
Understanding our duty provides us with the understanding of our divine soul. And, too, the understanding of our divine soul gives us the understanding of duty.
There is in our soul something that, if we see it as it is and give it the proper attention, will always give us great pleasure; this something is the moral disposition or quality which was given to us at our creation.
—IMMANUEL KANT
People can reach heavenly joy: those pure ones who are filled with the desire for a good life receive pleasures in their body, in their material life. When your mind and your heart are pure, then the divine will be opened for you.
—BRAHMIN INDIAN WISDOM
If your heart is filled with virtue, then you will find happiness and beauty.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The voice of your conscience is the voice of God.
June 19
Your conscience is your understanding of your spiritual origins; only when you possess such awareness will it be a real guide in your life.
There are two different beings within you, one which is blind and sensual, and another which can see and is spiritual.
This spiritual being is called conscience and can be compared with the needle of a compass which points at goodness at one end, and at the other, evil. We cannot perceive this compass until we stray from goodness, but as soon as we do something bad, then we feel this pull away from the direction of goodness in life.
God gave us the consciousness of mankind as a whole, as well as our own consciousness as individuals; with the help of these two things, as with two wings we can fly higher and come closer to God and to understand the truth.
—GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
Oh, conscience: you are the deathless voice of heaven, and a true guide and judge of goodness. You make a person resemble God.
—JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Youth is the time of passions and infatuations, and yet listen now to the voice of your conscience and accept it as the greatest authority. Always ask yourself, do my actions coincide with my conscience? And do not be afraid to arrive at meanings different from other people’s.
—THEODORE PARKER
Fear all that is not accepted by your conscience.
June 20
There was a time when people ate human flesh and found nothing wrong in it; even now there are such wild people. People stopped eating human meat, little by little; now they cease to eat the meat of animals little by little, though it has taken time. But the time will come when people will have the same disgust for the meat of animals as they now have for human flesh.
—After ALPHONSE LAMARTINE
It is terrible to throw little children to other people as foundlings, to organize gladiators’ fights, to torture prisoners, and to do other such uncivilized deeds. In the future, the time will come when it will be unacceptable to kill animals and take their dead bodies as your food.
—DR. JOHANN GEORG VON ZIMMERMANN
Do not raise your hand against your brother, and do not spill the blood of any living creatures who live on this earth, neither human beings nor pets nor wild animals nor birds. In the depth of your soul some divine voice stops you from spilling this blood. There is life in it. You cannot return this life.
—ALPHONSE LAMARTINE
In our time, the killing of animals for pleasure or food is almost a crime, and hunting and eating meat are not just trivial things, but bad actions, which like any other bad actions lead to many other actions which are worse.
June 21
The misery of the unintellectual life brings us to the need for an intellectual life.
Before, I lived in sin, and I saw that the majority of people around me lived in the same way. Like a robber, I knew I was unhappy and I suffered, and that people around me were unhappy and they suffered; and I didn’t see any way out of this situation except for suicide or death. Life seemed terrible to me. And then I heard the words of Christ and I understood them. And life ceased to seem an evil, and instead of desperation I felt a happiness for life which surpasses even death.
We can understand wisdom in three ways: first, by meditation; this is the most noble way. Secondly, by being influenced by someone or following someone; this is the easiest way. Third is the way of experience; this is the most difficult way.
—CONFUCIUS
When you suffer, think not on how you can escape suffering, but concentrate your efforts on what kind of inner moral and spiritual perfection this suffering requires.
All the misfortunes of mankind collectively and individually are not useless; they bring people and individuals and nations in different ways closer to the purpose which is set before them: the appearance of God, for every person in himself, and in all mankind.
June 22
There is only one true religion for all of mankind.
The difference between religions—what a strange expression. Certainly there can be different faiths, and beliefs in historical events which are passed from one generation to another to strengthen religion; in the same way there can be different religious books—the Sutras, Vedas, Koran, etc. But there can be only one religion, and it is real for all times.
—IMMANUEL KANT
We can believe in a thing, we can know that it exists, even if we cannot understand it with our intellect, or explain it with words.
If you are a Muslim, go and live as a Christian; if you are a Christian live as a Jew; if you are Catholic, live as an Orthodox—whatever religion you have, hold the same respect for people of different religions. If your speech together does not arouse or excite you to indignation and if you can freely communicate with them, you have achieved peace. It is said that the object of every religion is the same: all people look for love, and all the world is a place of love. Then why should we speak about the difference between the Muslim church and the Christian church?
—ISLAMIC WISDOM
Do not fear hesitations but study the different faiths and religions intellectually.
June 23
Only he who accepts that the essence or meaning of his life is not material but spiritual can be free.
A slave who is happy with his state is a slave twice over, because not only his body but his soul is enslaved.
O God, while I stay on this earth I want to be that which I am.
—EPICTETUS
Peace is a great blessing if it can be reached, but if peace is reached by slavery, it becomes a misfortune and not a blessing. Peace is the freedom which is based on the acceptance of every person’s rights, and slavery is the negation of rights, and of human dignity. Therefore, we should sacrifice everything to achieve peace, but even more, to get rid of slavery.
—After MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Remember that you are more free if you change your opinion and follow those who have corrected your mistakes, than if you are stubborn about your mistakes.
—MARCUS AURELIUS
There is only one real knowledge: that which helps us to be free. Every other type of knowledge is mere amusement.
—VISHNU PURANA, INDIAN WISDOM
There is no middle way: either be a slave of people or of God.