Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.

God is bigger than our sins. God wants you as you are-stumbling, sinning, confused. All He asks if is is love-love for Him, love for others, and love for ourselves. He asks us to lay down our lives-not to live like ascetics, devoid of pleasure or joy, but to give him our lives so that he may increase our joy and increase our love.

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

A commercial society whose members are essentially ascetic and indifferent in social ritual has to be provided with blueprints and specifications for evoking the right tone for every occasion.

Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.

Religions which condemn the pleasures of sense drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.