“What the divine author of the Mahabharata said of his great creation is equally true of Hinduism. Whatever of substance is contained in any other religion is always to be found in Hinduism, and what is not contained in it is insubstantial or unnecessary.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Young India (27 September 1925)
1920s

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Mahatma Gandhi 238

pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul… 1869–1948

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“On examination, I have found [Hinduism] to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me. Its freedom from dogma makes a forcible appeal to me in as much as it gives the votary the largest scope for self-expression. Not being an exclusive religion, it enables the followers of the faith not merely to respect all the other religions, but it also enables them to admire and assimilate whatever may be good in the other faiths. Non-violence is common to all religions, but it has found the highest expression and application in Hinduism. (I do not regard Jainism or Buddhism as separate from Hinduism.) Hinduism believes in the oneness not of merely all human life but in the oneness of all that lives.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

October 1927. The Collected Works, Volume 35, New Delhi, 1968, pp. 166-67. As quoted in Goel, S.R. History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)
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“Buddhism today is a dalitist religion and Hinduism is a brahminic religion with oppositional spiritual positions about human equality and man-woman relations.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

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“They also found that their old religion was part of a larger religious system which once prevailed in other parts 'of the world as well. Nigel Pennick, author and thinker, found great similarity between old European Paganism and Hinduism. He said that Hinduism represented the Eastern expression of this universal tradition and foresaw the possibility that Hindus might come to accept Europe's Pagans as a European branch of Hinduism. Prudence Jones, the spokesperson for the U. K. Pagan Federation, said the same things. She observed that all the world's indigenous and ethnic religions have three features in common: they are nature-venerating, seeing nature as a manifestation of Divinity; secondly, they are polytheistic and recognize many Gods, many Manifestations; the third feature is that they all recognize the Goddess, the female aspect of Divinity as well as the male. She showed how European Paganism was similar to Hinduism, Shintoism, and the North American tradition. She thought that apart from doctrinal similarity, it would be useful for the European Pagans to be affiliated with a world Hindu organization which would give them legal protection - remember, that Paganism in Europe is still a heresy and it has no legal rights and protection. She emphasized that European Pagan religion is the native, indigenous religion of Europe, and religions with doctrines like Christianity came later.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (1992)

“American Hinduism is a minority religion in America (…) that deserves the same treatment that is already being given to other American minority religions – such as Native American, Buddhist or Islamic – by the Academy. The subaltern studies depiction of Hinduism as being the dominant religion of India must, therefore, be questioned in the American context.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Academic Hinduphobia

Source: Academic Hinduphobia (2016), p.213

“When two-three different religions claim that only their own religions are true and all other religions are false, their religions are only ways to Heaven, conflicts can not be avoided. Thus, fundamentalism tries to abolish all other religions. This is called Bolshevism in religion. Only the path shown by the Hinduism can relieve the world form this meanness.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

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“All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

This is not by Churchill, but a paraphrase of Churchill quoting Arthur James Balfour in Great Contemporaries (1937): 'there were some things that were true, and some things that were trite; but what was true was trite, and what was not trite was not true' .
Misattributed

“I am a Hindu... I am proud of being a Hindu... and because of tolerance to all other religions, I consider Hinduism superior.”

Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) Indian politician

(in a interview with him in Hindustan Times, 19/11/1990). Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1991). Ayodhya and after: Issues before Hindu society.

“Pure community is a matter of no interest to any will; but a community which pursues a common good is of supreme interest to all wills; and what we have here said is that whatever the nature of that common good … it must contain the development of individual powers, as a prior condition for all other goods.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

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“Whenever I go and give a talk on Hinduism, and when I say something nice about it, invariably someone from the audience will object: 'I think Hinduism is a disgusting religion because of the caste system.'”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

Source: Quoted from Elst, K. The use of Dalits and racism in anti-Hindu propaganda https://web.archive.org/web/20190310132553/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/chr/christiandalit.html

“The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.”

Henri Bergson book Creative Evolution

Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter I, as translated by Arthur Mitchell (1911), p. 14.; italicized in the original.

“What the divine author of the Mahabharata said of his great creation is equally true of Hinduism. Whatever of substance is contained in any other religion is always to be found in Hinduism, and what is not contained in it is insubstantial or unnecessary.”

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Mahatma Gandhi 238

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