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flowers
Their Spiritual significance
Photo Collection
Nobility
The incapacity for any pettiness either of sentiments or of action.
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Dahlia Spp. Cav. (Asteraceae [= Compositae])
Dahlia
Very large (over 16 cm) fully double showy deep wine red flower with broadly cupped ray florets symmetrically arranged in a dense rounded cushionlike head; borne singly.
The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions.... I don't mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested.
The Mother
The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 1. - 1951-1960
In my ignorance I thought anger could be noble and vengeance grandiose; but now when I watch Achilles in his epic fury, I see a very fine baby in a very fine rage and I am pleased and amused.
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Power is noble, when it overtops anger; destruction is grandiose, but it loses caste when it proceeds from vengeance. Leave these things, for they belong to a lower humanity.
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The acceptance of poverty is noble & beneficial in a class or an individual, but it becomes fatal and pauperises life of its richness & expansion if it is perverted into a general or national ideal. Athens, not Sparta, is the progressive type for mankind. Ancient India with its ideal of vast riches & vast spending was the greatest of nations; modern India with its trend towards national asceticism has finally become poor in life & sunk into weakness & degradation.
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The world has had only half a dozen successful revolutions and most even of these were very like failures; yet it is by great & noble failures that humanity advances.
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It is noble to pardon thine own injurers, but not so noble to pardon wrongs done to others. Nevertheless pardon these too, but when needful, calmly avenge.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 17. - The Hour of God
In that former illusion, there were noble actions, generous actions, great, heroic actions, all adding color to life and capable of giving you some interesting hours. Now that too is gone: I see it all as childishness.
The Mother
The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 3. - 1962
There is nothing noble besides in fanaticism - there is no nobility of motive, though there may be a fierce enthusiasm of motive. Religious fanaticism is something psychologically low-born and ignorant - and usually in its action fierce, cruel and base. Religious ardour like that of the martyr who sacrifices himself only is a different thing.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 22. - Letters on Yoga.-P.1
And it's true, those things I saw this morning which seemed so ... above all stupid and ugly (I've never had a sense of morality at any time in my life, thank God! But stupid and ugly things have always seemed ... I've always done my best to distance myself from them, even when I was very small). And now I see that these things which seem not only ridiculous but, well, almost shameful were considered, as I recall, remarkably noble earlier on and they represented an exceptionally lofty attitude in life - the very same things. So then I understood that it's quite simply a question of proportion.
And that's how the world is - things which now seem totally unacceptable to us, things we CANNOT tolerate, were quite all right in the past.
The Mother
The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 1. - 1951-1960
We could call our world "the world of bad habits".
There has been for some time, I don't know, a sort of benevolent, smiling and ... constructive irony. As if a "spirit" had come. Then, there is another thing (but I know that one), which Sri Aurobindo used to call a censor. He told me, "You have a very strong censor in your atmosphere." It kept criticizing me constantly, all the time; not so often now, but it's still there. And now and then, it tells me, "But you shock people! They expect something noble, great, imposing, and you always speak in an ironic tone!" Yesterday again, some people came to see me - and jokes keep coming to me all the time. I tell them jokes, and I see ... (laughing) I see their appalled looks!
The Mother
The Mother. Agenda. - Volume 8. - 1967