Friedrich Max Müller

It is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ.

"what had been said by Buddha, that alone was well said;"

If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was …

He must be a man of little faith, who would fear to subject his own religion to the same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment for that faith which we …

History seems to teach that the whole human race required a gradual education before, in the fullness of time, it could be admitted to the truths of Christianity. All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted, before the light of a …

India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education.

The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only …

As early as in 1850, he wrote to Bunsen ‘…if Wilson would write from the standpoint of a missionary, and would show how the knowledge and bringing into light of the Veda would upset the whole existing system of Indian theology, it might …

India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece was at the time of St. Paul. The rotten tree has for some time had artificial supports, because its fall would have been inconvenient for the Government.

[A]s in his language and in his grammar [the Indian] has preserved something of what seems peculiar to each of the northern [Indo-european] dialects singly, as he agrees with the Greek and the German where the Greek and the German seem to …

It is curious to see how the descendants of the same race, to which the first conquerors and masters of India belonged, return . . . to accomplish the glorious work of civilization, which had been left unfinished by their Arian bretheren.

That there are startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity cannot be denied, and it must likewise be admitted that Buddhism existed at least 400 years before Christianity. I go even further, and should feel extremely grateful …