Nobility: the incapacity for any pettiness either of sentiments or of action.
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Aristocracy: incapable of baseness and pettiness, it asserts itself with dignity and authority.
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Dignity affirms its worth, but demands nothing.
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Dignity of the emotions: not to permit one’s emotions to contradict the inner Divinity.
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Dignity in the physical: above all bargaining.
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Psychic dignity refuses to accept anything that lowers or debases.
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Refinement: gradually grossness is eliminated from the being.
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Sensitivity: one of the results of the refinement of the being.
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Gentleness: always gracious and wishing to give pleasure.
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177Charm envelops and conquers by an inexhaustible sweetness.
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Sweetness adds its smiling touch to life without making a fuss.
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Sweetness itself becomes powerful when at the service of the Divine.
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A smile acts upon difficulties as the sun upon clouds—it disperses them.
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I don’t think that one can ever smile too much. Someone who knows how to smile in all circumstances is very close to true equality of soul.
22 September 1934
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Generally speaking, man is an animal who takes himself terribly seriously. To know how to smile at oneself in all circumstances, to smile at one’s sorrows and disillusions, ambitions and sufferings, indignation and revolt—what a powerful weapon with which to overcome oneself!
7 November 1946
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Learn to smile always and in all circumstances; to smile at your sorrows as well as your joys, your sufferings as well as your hopes, for in a smile there is a sovereign power of self-mastery.
7 November 1946
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178If you can always smile at life, life also will always smile at you.
6 October 1960
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If one can smile eternally, one is eternally young.
6 October 1960
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Eternal smile: a kindness only the Divine can give.
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You can smile genuinely at an enemy if you are above all insult and offence. This is the primary condition for the yogic attitude.
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To smile at an enemy is to disarm him.