अरुण औपवेसी से उसके सम्बन्धियों ने कहा, ‘आपकी आयु काफी है, आप यज्ञ की अग्नि को स्थापित करें।’ उसने उत्तर दिया : ऐसा कहकर तुम यह कह रहे हो कि मैं अब मौन धार… - Friedrich Max Müller

Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something totally distinct from their own, as formerly they used to describe the languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering of birds than the articulate speech of men. The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God. And even to us at home, a wider view of the religious life of the world may teach many a useful lesson.

222. He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; other people are but holding the reins.

Whether listening to the shrieks of the Shaman sorcerers of Tatary, or to the odes of Pindar, or to the sacred songs of Paul Gerhard: whether looking at the pagodas of China, or the Parthenon of Athens, or the cathedral of Cologne: whether reading the sacred books of the Buddhists, of the Jews, or of those who worship God in spirit and in truth, we ought to be able to say, like the Emperor Maximilian, 'Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,' or, translating his words somewhat freely, 'I am a man, nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.'