"Dispute not with any one concerning the things of this world and its affairs .."

"Beware lest ye contend with any one, nay, strive to make him aware of the truth with kindly manner and most convincing exhortation. If your hearer respond, he will have responded to his own behoof, and if not, turn ye away from him, and set your faces towards God’s sacred Court, the seat of resplendent holiness.

Dispute not with any one concerning the things of this world and its affairs, for God hath abandoned them to such as have set their affection upon them."

-Bahá’u’lláh, A Compilation on Scholarship, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, section CXXVIII

" .. Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments."

"Show forbearance and benevolence and love to one another. Should any one among you be incapable of grasping a certain truth, or be striving to comprehend it, show forth, when conversing with him, a spirit of extreme kindliness and good-will. Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments."

-Bahá’u’lláh, A Compilation on Scholarship, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, section V

"For how long will ye worship the idols of your evil passions?"

"Amongst the people is he whose learning hath made him proud, and who hath been debarred thereby from recognizing My Name, the Self-Subsisting; who, when he heareth the tread of sandals following behind him, waxeth greater in his own esteem than Nimrod. Say: O rejected one! Where now is his abode? By God, it is the nethermost fire. Say: O concourse of divines! Hear ye not the shrill voice of My Most Exalted Pen? See ye not this Sun that shineth in refulgent splendour above the All-Glorious Horizon? For how long will ye worship the idols of your evil passions? Forsake your vain imaginings, and turn yourselves unto God, your Everlasting Lord."

-Bahá’u’lláh, A Compilation on Scholarship, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 41

Paul Cezanne

"True learning ..."

"True learning is that which is conducive to the well-being of the world, not to pride and self-conceit, or to tyranny, violence and pillage."

-Bahá’u’lláh, A Compilation on Scholarship (From a Tablet, translated from the Persian) p.8

Edgar Degas

"He, verily, is even as an eye unto mankind, and as the spirit of life unto the body of all creation."

"Know thou that he is truly learned who hath acknowledged My Revelation, and drunk from the Ocean of My knowledge, and soared in the atmosphere of My love, and cast away all else besides Me, and taken firm hold on that which hath been sent down from the Kingdom of My wondrous utterance. He, verily, is even as an eye unto mankind, and as the spirit of life unto the body of all creation. Glorified be the All-Merciful Who hath enlightened him, and caused him to arise and serve His great and mighty Cause. Verily, such a man is blessed by the Concourse on high, and by them who dwell within the Tabernacle of Grandeur, who have quaffed My sealed Wine in My name, the Omnipotent, the All-Powerful."

-Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, pp. 207–208

"In this day no regard is paid to loftiness or lowliness, to poverty or wealth, to nobility and lineage, to weakness or might."

"We beseech God to aid all the leaves to attain the knowledge of the Tree and deprive them not of the ocean of His generosity. In this day no regard is paid to loftiness or lowliness, to poverty or wealth, to nobility and lineage, to weakness or might. Whosoever recognizeth the incomparable Beloved is the possessor of true wealth and occupieth a divine station. Today, in the court of the True One, the queen of the world and her like are not worth a mustard seed, because although she may speak in the name of God, invoke the Lord of creation every day in the temple of her body, and spend large sums of earthly wealth for the development of her nation, she is deprived of recognition of the Sun of His Manifestation and is barred from the True One in Whose remembrance she is engaged…."

-Bahá'u'lláh , A Compilation on Women, From a Tablet - translated from the Persian and Arabic [6]

Michelangelo

"An infernal engine hath been devised, and hath proved so cruel a weapon of destruction that its like none hath ever witnessed or heard."

"… In all matters moderation is desirable. If a thing is carried to excess, it will prove a source of evil. Consider the civilization of the West, how it hath agitated and alarmed the peoples of the world. An infernal engine hath been devised, and hath proved so cruel a weapon of destruction that its like none hath ever witnessed or heard. The purging of such deeply-rooted and overwhelming corruptions cannot be effected unless the peoples of the world unite in pursuit of one common aim and embrace one universal faith. Incline your ears unto the Call of this Wronged One and adhere firmly to the Lesser Peace."

-Bahá’u’lláh , Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 69