Max Mueller on Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

He was a wonderful mixture of God and man. In his ordinary state he would talk of himself as servant of all men and women. He looked upon them all as God. He himself would never be addressed as Guru, or teacher. Never would be claim for himself any high position. He would touch the ground reverently where his disciples had trodden. But every now and then strange fits of God-consciousness came upon him. He then became changed into a different being altogether. He then spoke of himself as being able to do and know everything. He spoke as if he had the power of giving anything to anybody. He would speak of himself as the same soul that had been born before as Rama, as Krishna, as Jesus, or as Buddha, born again as Ramakrishna.
'When the rose is blown, and sheds its fragrance all around, the bees come of themselves. The bees seek the full-blown rose, and not the rose the bees.' This saying of Sri Ramakrishna has been verified often and often in his own life. Number of earnest men, of all sects and creeds, began to flock to him to receive instruction and to drink the waters of life.
The childlike simplicity, the perfect unselfishness, and by the simple language in which he propounded the highest truths of religion and philosophy.