Q0372

“Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the…” — Bhagavad Gita (Bhagavad Gita 2.38)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Bhagavad Gita 2.38. Theme: action.

English

Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same…
Thinker Bhagavad Gita
School Indian Classical Philosophy
Source Bhagavad Gita 2.38
Theme Action
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Bhagavad Gita 2.38 and files it under Indian Classical Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad Gita appears in this archive through verified English quotations associated with the Indian Classical Philosophy tradition. Biographical certainty varies by figure and text; where the “author” is a scripture or school anthology, read the name as a traditional attribution rather than a modern individual biography.

How to read this passage

Philosophy of action asks how intentions, reasons, habits, and consequences hang together. Ethical traditions often insist that knowing the good is incomplete without doing it. This passage enters that discussion through action.

Concepts in this quote

Action
Action concerns agency: what it is to do something intentionally, and how thought becomes practice.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Bhagavad Gita. (n.d.). Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same… In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372

MLA: Bhagavad Gita. “Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372.

Chicago: Bhagavad Gita. “Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory…”?

The passage is attributed to Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavad Gita 2.38. The archive attributes this English wording to Bhagavad Gita 2.38 and files it under Indian Classical Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Bhagavad Gita mean by action?

Philosophy of action asks how intentions, reasons, habits, and consequences hang together. Ethical traditions often insist that knowing the good is incomplete without doing it. This passage enters that discussion through action.

Same thinker

More from Bhagavad Gita

  1. You have a right to action alone, never to its fruits.
  2. Contacts with the senses give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go and are impermanent—endure them.
  3. One should lift oneself by the Self and not degrade oneself; for the Self alone is friend and enemy of the self.
  4. Contacts with the senses, O son of Kunti, give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go — endure them.
  5. One should lift oneself by oneself; one should not degrade oneself.

All quotations by Bhagavad Gita

Same theme

More on action

  1. I shall endeavor not to laugh at human actions, nor to weep over them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
  2. This mind is luminous—what more is there to say?
  3. Contacts with the senses, O son of Kunti, give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go — endure them.
  4. Do not be troubled about whether the rest of life will be long or short, as if that mattered much.

Browse the action theme