On Skepticism and Exegesis:
"Even a hundred statements of sruti to the effect that fire is cold and non-luminous won't prove valid. If it does make such a statement, its import will have to be interpreted differently." -Adi Shankaracharya in his Bhagavad Gita Commentary, 18.66.
On the Purpose of Life :
"While life is yours live joyously;
No one can avoid Death's searching eye:
When this body of ours is burnt,
How can it ever return again?" -Carvaka beliefs as reported by Madhavacharya in the opening of his Sarva Darshana Samgraha.
On the Divine:
"Whatever It was
that made this earth
the base,
the world its life
the wind its pillar,
arranged the lotus and the moon
and covered it all with folds
of sky
with Itself inside,
to that Mystery
indifferent to all differences
to It I pray,
O Ramanatha."
-Devara Dasimaaya, translated by A. K. Ramanujan in Speaking of Shiva.
On the Greatest Dilemma:
"To which should we devote ourselves: the hermit's mountainside
Or else the rounded sensual forms of women built for love?
Just two things count in life: young heavy-breasted women
Who are made keen for sport by wine — or else the forest.
All nectar and all venom too are broad-hipped women's gifts
Ambrosia in love but poison-ivy out of it.
The righteous man may be the master of his senses till
A woman's arrow-glance wings from her eyes into his heart.
Settle down beside the Ganges which cleanses all your sins
Or between a pair of breasts which blank out all your thoughts.
Renouncing the world is fine as the subject of sermons
But who'll turn from the hips of fair women begirdled with rubies?"
-Bhartrihari, Translated by John Brough in Poems from the Sanskrit.
Videshi Sutra 