November 15, 2026
A compilation of quotes and realizations from prominent Western philosophers, scientists, and writers on the beauty of the Bhagavad Gita.
Thoreau, Emerson & Hesse Appreciations
• Henry David Thoreau: "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupended and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Geeta, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial. The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a bigger, purer or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagavad Gita."
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Geeta. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."
• Hermann Hesse: "The marvel of the Bhagavad Geeta is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Geeta. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."
• Hermann Hesse: "The marvel of the Bhagavad Geeta is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."
Jung, Schweitzer & Schopenhauer Insights
• Carl Jung: "The idea that man is like unto an inverted tree seems to have been current in by gone ages. The link with Vedic conceptions is provided by Plato in his Timaeus in which it states 'behold we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant.' This correlation can be discerned by what Krishna expresses in chapter 15 of Bhagavad Geeta."
• Dr. Albert Schweitzer: "The Bhagavad Geeta has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions."
• Arthur Schopenhauer: "In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death."
• Dr. Albert Schweitzer: "The Bhagavad Geeta has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions."
• Arthur Schopenhauer: "In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death."
Hastings, Mark Twain & Kipling Quotes
• Lord Warren Hastings: "The writers of the Indian philosophies will survive, when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased to exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrances."
• Mark Twain: "So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds... Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition."
• Rudyard Kipling: "...A fool lies here who tried to hustle the east." (Warning to fundamental Christian missionaries)
• Mark Twain: "So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds... Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition."
• Rudyard Kipling: "...A fool lies here who tried to hustle the east." (Warning to fundamental Christian missionaries)