Book 1
The Spanish Gypsy (1868)
Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 559
Innocence (1986)
Context: He struggled to keep his temper. It struck him that both Marta and Chiara took advantage of him by attacking him with their ignorance, or call it innocence. A serious thinking adult had no defence against innocence because he was obliged to respect it, whereas the innocent scarcely knows what respect is, or seriousness either.
“To take those fools in clerical garb seriously is to show them too much honor.”
Comment on the Union of Orthodox Rabbis after expelling a rabbi because of his disbelief in God as a personal entity.
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein's God (1997)
“Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.”
Source: Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
1977
The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993)
“To suffer is the great modality of taking the world seriously.”
The Book of Delusions (1936)
Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 38
Context: St. Paul earned his living most of the time by hard labor and constantly reminded his converts that they must not defraud each other, but love one another and work with their own hands. The same rule of life is applied by the laws governing the early monastic orders.
The Night Is Large (1996), Introduction to Part III, Pseudoscience p. 171
Context: Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.
