What are the greatest quotes from the Mahabharata and Gita?

The Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, which is a part of the Mahabharata, are rich in profound and insightful quotes that cover a wide range of themes including morality, spirituality, and human nature. Here are some of the most significant and impactful quotes from these texts:

Mahabharata

On Mortality and Impermanence

• "What is the greatest wonder in the world? That, every single day, people die, Yet the living think they are immortal."1

On Detachment and Grief

• "When everything in this world is temporary, why do you grieve for that which is lost?”1

On Virtue and Conduct

• "Scriptural knowledge is successful when it results in humility and good conduct, wealth is successful when it is both enjoyed and given away in charity, and marriage is successful when the wife is enjoyed and bears offspring."1

On Attachment and Illusion

• "Over-attachment for one’s close relatives is simply born of ignorance. Every creature in the world is born alone and dies alone. He experiences the results of his own good and evil deeds and in the end leaves the present body to accept another. The belief that one person is the relation of another is nothing more than illusion."1

On Forgiveness and Tolerance

• "Desist, brother. Great men never care for the harsh words uttered by inferior men. Even if able to retaliate, they do not take seriously acts of hostility, preferring instead to remember even a little good that their enemies may have done them."1

On the Nature of the Soul

• "A wise man laments neither for the living nor the dead. Both you, I, and all these assembled kshatriyas have always existed and will always exist. We are eternal souls, passing from body to body. Even in this life we see how the body changes, even though we remain the same person. In the same way, when death comes, we are given a new body. A self-controlled person is not bewildered by such a change."1

Bhagavad Gita

On Living One's Own Life

• "It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection."23

On Selfless Action

• "You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat."23

On Detachment and Equanimity

• "Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity."23

On the Unity of Life

• "The man who sees me in everything and everything within me will not be lost to me, nor will I ever be lost to him. He who is rooted in oneness realizes that I am in every being; wherever he goes, he remains in me."23

On the Nature of the Soul

• "The embodied soul is eternal in existence, indestructible, and infinite, only the material body is factually perishable, therefore fight O Arjuna."23

On Love and Attachment

• "He who has no attachments can really love others, for his love is pure and divine."3

On Mindfulness and Inner Peace

• "The peace of God is with them whose mind and soul are in harmony, who are free from desire and wrath, who know their own soul."23

On the Cycle of Life

• "The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."23

These quotes encapsulate key teachings from both the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, emphasizing themes such as detachment, selfless action, the eternal nature of the soul, and the importance of living a virtuous and mindful life.