“I am not at their orders, but at those of Nature! My confreres doubtless have their reasons for working as you have said. But in thus doing violence to nature and treating human beings like puppets, they run the risk of producing lifeless and artificial work…”

Attributed to Auguste Rodin by Isadora Duncan, As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
1900s-1940s

1970s and later

Source: In This Our Life

Source: Eternal Treblinka (2002), p. 12

The Uttarpara Address (1909)
Context: The second message came and it said, "Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the Rishis, saints and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatan Dharma, this is the eternal religion which you did not really know before, but which I have now revealed to you. The agnostic and the sceptic in you have been answered, for I have given you proofs within and without you, physical and subjective, which have satisfied you. When you go forth, speak to your nation always this word, that it is for the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise. I am giving them freedom for the service of the world. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists. To magnify the religion means to magnify the country. I have shown you that I am everywhere and in all men and in all things, that I am in this movement and I am not only working in those who are striving for the country but I am working also in those who oppose them and stand in their path. I am working in everybody and whatever men may think or do, they can do nothing but help in my purpose. They also are doing my work, they are not my enemies but my instruments. In all your actions you are moving forward without knowing which way you move. You mean to do one thing and you do another. You aim at a result and your efforts subserve one that is different or contrary. It is Shakti that has gone forth and entered into the people. Since long ago I have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come and it is I who will lead it to its fulfilment."

Speech in Greenock (7 October 1903), quoted in The Times (8 October 1903), p. 8.
1900s
Context: Now the Cobden Club all this time rubs its hands in the most patriotic spirit and says, "Ah, yes; but how cheap you are buying." Yes, but think how that effects different classes in the community. Take the capitalist... His interest is to buy in the cheapest market, because he does not produce, but can get every article he consumes. He need not buy a single article in this country; he need not make a single article. He can invest his money in foreign countries and live upon the interest, and then in the returns of the prosperity of the country it will be said that the country is growing richer because he is growing richer. What about the working men? What about the class that depends upon having work in order to earn wages or subsistence at all? They cannot do without the work; and yet the work will go if it is not produced in this country. This is the state of things which I am protesting.

Quoted in Leonhard Emmerling (2003) Jackson Pollock: 1912-1956 Taschen, p. 48
in posthumous publications

Stanislaus Grumman to Lee Scoresby in Ch. 14 : Alamo Gulch
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Misplaced compassion
Focus Fourteen