“[C]an you be noble as you practice violence, extortion, blackmail, even mass murder? The struggle to be free from oppression is, in my mind, per se noble. But noble causes attract a wide range of participants, and many would fall far short of nobility”

2005

On being appointed the brand ambassador of VHP's Shrimad Ramayan Parichay Yojana Samiti, as quoted in " VHP takes Ramayan, Mahabharat to schools http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/24vhp.htm" Rediff (24 February 2006)

Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 8, p. 126–127

in Eric Hoffer, Between the Devil and the Dragon (New York: 1982), p. 108

Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

Source: Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947), p. 36

Looking for an Honest Man (2009)
Context: To act nobly, a noble heart is not enough. It needs help from a sharp mind. Though the beginnings of ethical virtue lie in habituation, starting in our youth, and though the core of moral virtue is the right-shaping of our loves and hates, by means of praise and blame, reward and punishment, the perfection of character finally requires a certain perfection of the mind.

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince of Libanus, p. 341
Context: There is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work. Be he never so benighted and forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual Despair.

Source: The Complete Sherlock Holmes