Count Hermann Alexander von Keyserling (July 20, 1880 – April 26, 1946) was a Baltic German philosopher from the Keyserlingk family. His grandfather Alexander Keyserling was a notable geologist of Imperial Russia.

Quotes

  • Hinduism at its best has spoken the only relevant truth about the way to self-realization in the full sense of the word.
  • The absolute superiority of India over the West in philosophy; poetry from the Mahabharata, containing the Bhagavad-Gita, “perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world".
  • Benares is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths anymore.....I feel nearer here than I have ever done to the heart of the world; here I feel everyday as if soon, perhaps even today, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation...The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in strength; stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend his time on the Ganges; here he would discover what piety means.
  • I have not found in Europe or America, poets, thinkers or popular leaders equal, or even comparable, to those of India today.
    • Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
  • India has produced the profoundest metaphysics that we know of … the absolute superiority of India over the West in philosophy; poetry from the Mahabharata, containing the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world.
    • source: The Case for India, Will Durant. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

About Keyserling

  • This militarization of everyday Muslim life was noticed with keen interest by Count Keyserling (1880-1946 CE) during his travels in Islamic countries. He summed up his over-all impression in his The Travel Diary of a Philosopher. "Islam is a religion," he wrote, "of absolute surrender and submissiveness to God - but to a God of a certain character - a War-Lord who is entitled to do with us as he will and who bids us stand ever in line of battle against the foe" The ritual of this belief embodies the idea of discipline. When the true believers every day at fixed hours perform their prayers in serried ranks in the mosque, all going through the same gestures at the same moment, this is not, as in Hinduism, done as a method of self-realization, but in the spirit in which the Prussian soldier defiled before his Kaiser. This military basis of Islam explains all the essential virtues of the Musalman. It also explains his fundamental defects - his unprogressiveness, his incapacity to adapt himself, his lack of invention. The soldier has simply to obey orders. All the rest is the affair of Allah."
    • Sita Ram Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition, ch. 8
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.