“Very many Americans have an offensive habit of referring to natives as `heathen.' Mahommedans and Hindus are heathen alike in their eyes.”

—  Rudyard Kipling

Source: From Sea to Sea vol. 2, p. 61

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 4, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Very many Americans have an offensive habit of referring to natives as `heathen.' Mahommedans and Hindus are heathen al…" by Rudyard Kipling?
Rudyard Kipling photo
Rudyard Kipling200
English short-story writer, poet, and novelist 1865–1936

Related quotes

James Tod photo

“These were the first specimens of Christian warfare against the heathen of Hind… It would perhaps be fortunate for Christianity, if the historic muse in India were mute, as many have endeavoured to prove her to be, since atrocities like these are alone sufficient to have scared the Hindus from all association with her creed.”

James Tod (1782–1835) 1782-1835, English officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar

Source: James Tod Travels in Western India’, London, 1839, reprinted in New Delhi, 1997, p. 260. Also quoted in Preface by S. R. Goel in Matilda Joslyn Gage : ‘Woman, Church and State’, New Delhi, 1997 (Reprint), p. V (Introduction). Also quoted in http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch20.htm. note: Travels in Western India<br><br>Ref: en.wikiquote.org - James Tod / Quotes / Travels in Western India

David Bowie photo

“Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Livewire interview (2002)
Context: Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods' presence in his life. He is the 21st century man. However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo

“Comparative theology is a two-edged weapon, and has so proved itself. But the Christian advocates, unabashed by evidence, force comparison in the serenest way; Christian legends and dogmas, they say, do somewhat resemble the heathen, it is true; but see, while the one teaches us the existence, powers, and attributes of an all-wise, all-good Father-God, Brahmanism gives us a multitude of minor gods, and Buddhism none whatever; one is fetishism and polytheism, the other bald atheism. Jehovah is the one true God, and the Pope and Martin Luther are His prophets! This is one edge of the sword, and this the other: Despite missions, despite armies, despite enforced commercial intercourse, the "heathen" find nothing in the teachings of Jesus — sublime though some are — that Christna and Gautama had not taught them before. And so, to gain over any new converts, and keep the few already won by centuries of cunning, the Christians give the "heathen" dogmas more absurd than their own, and cheat them by adopting the habit of their native priests, and practicing the very "idolatry and fetishism" which they so disparage in the "heathens."”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Comparative theology works both ways.
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter XI

Madison Grant photo

“We must also sympathize with the Whites in Kenya Colony in their opposition to a filling of their country with cheap Hindu labor. As Americans we can understand the Negro and recognize his cheerful qualities, but we can have little sympathy with the Hindu whom we have expressly barred from our Pacific Coast. These Hindus, with the Chinese, have ruined the native races of many of the Polynesian Islands. They have been for ages in contact with the highest civilizations, but have failed to benefit by such contact, either physically, intellectually, or morally.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Eddie Izzard photo

“So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Dennis Prager photo

“The ideas that America should be a 'melting pot' or that all Americans should identify as American are now unutterable in educated company. Indeed, many college campuses do not have an American flag on their campus because some students regard it as 'offensive”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

representing imperialism and capitalism.
2010s, A Dark Time in America (2016)

“Hindus temples have been under unprecedented attack for a thousand years. They suffered desecration, destruction, confiscation of their property and iniquitous taxation under the Muslim rulers. Under the British, the more physical methods ceased but fiscal methods were adopted for undermining "heathenism". A large part of the land and properties of the temples were taken away under all kinds of pretexts. After independence, the temples have fared no better. Their properties have not been restored to them and they continue to exist in deepening poverty. In the South where there are still many noble structures left, the temples are under the control of a Government which takes pride in being "secular", and whose secularity is thoroughly anti-Hindu in orientation.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

William Harvey photo

“As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.”

William Harvey (1578–1657) English physician

Introduction.
De Generatione Animalium (1651)

“if you ask me many of Americans have been wearing the mask even before from covid 19. the mask i refer to is of course the clown's mask.”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1272935502753087489] <br class="br">Tweets by year, 2020

Dennis Prager photo

“American values, or Americanism, refers to what I call the "American Trinity": "Liberty," "In God We Trust," and "E Pluribus Unum" ("Out of Many, One"), the three values that appear on all American coins.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

Dennis Prager. Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph https://books.google.com/books?id=aAFSQWdwexEC, 2012. <br class="br">2010s

Related topics