Popular quotes about India! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 17
If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Samskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. If our race forgot the Buddha, the Upanishads and the great epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), India would cease to be India .
Jawaharlal NehruAt this unprecedented juncture in our history I have a word for you. Do not be disheartened by our temporary defeat ; be cheerful and optimistic. Above all, never lose your faith in the destiny of India. There is no power on earth which can keep India in bondage. India will be free and, that too, soon. JAl-HIND !
Subhas Chandra BoseSix months ago, I traveled to India to see firsthand what the prime minister of that country calls a national shame. It is the systematic, widespread, shocking elimination of India's baby girls. Some 50,000 female fetuses are aborted every month in India.
Elizabeth VargasWe must create a history of India in living terms. Up to the present that history, as written by the English, practically begins with Warren Hastings, and crams in certain unavoidable preliminaries, which cover a few thousands of years...The history of India has yet to be written for the first time. It has to be humanized, emotionalized, made the trumpet-voice and evangel of the race that inhabit India.
Sister NiveditaSo far as we are concerned, there is not one word in the statements that I have made in this council which can be interpreted to mean that we will not honour international obligations. I want to say for the purpose of the record that there is nothing that has been said on behalf of the Government of India which in the slightest degree indicates that the Government of India or the Union of India will dishonour any international obligations it has undertaken.
Arundhati RoyWe cannot forget that we live and have been living for many years in the midst of an empire. We cannot forget that the different provinces of India are gradually coming closer to one another and a new nationality which comprises not only the different provinces but the whole of India is growing up in our midst and we cannot forget that our interests, even our selfish interests, our hopes, our ambitions are indissolubly connected with the interest of the empire.
Chittaranjan DasThe plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi...who realised too late that his closest comrades and disciples were more interested in power than principle, and that his own vision had long been clouded by the illusion that the struggle he led for India's freedom was a nonviolent one.
Stanley WolpertThere are people doing yoga in New York, dancing around; that's the power of India. You go to a nightclub somewhere in Spain and there's Amitabh Bachchan on the screen there, dancing around. That's the power of India. That's the power of Indian people.
Rahul GandhiLove makes no distinction between man and man, between an Aryan and a Mlechchha, between a Brรขhmana and a Pariah, nor even between a man and a woman. Love makes the whole universe as one's own home. True progress is slow but sure. Work among those young men who can devote heart and soul to this one duty - the duty of raising the masses of India. Awake them, unite them, and inspire them with this spirit of renunciation; it depends wholly on the young people of India.
Swami VivekanandaA new India which realizes its destiny in the framework of an open society, in the framework of an open economy, respecting all fundamental human freedoms great respect for pluralistic, inclusive value system. I think that's what unites India and the United States. And I do hope that working together, our two countries can write a new chapter in the history of our relationship.
Manmohan Singh70 percent of India's imports of oil and oil products are imported from abroad. There is uncertainty about supply. There is uncertainty about prices. And that hurts India's development.
Manmohan SinghEven in areas like the most depressed region of India in terms of female education, namely Rajasthan, which has [one of] the lowest female literacy [rates] in India. Even there, 80 to 90 percent of the parents would like their girls to go to school. And indeed, about 80 percent would like them to be made compulsory.
Amartya SenI learned to stop being English about things like love. If you make a film in England about love, it's hugely complicated. It's all about saying what the weather is like, and you're secretly telling someone you love them. You know what the English are like; they're very repressed people. You don't get that in India. India is incredibly un-cynical about love. It's a not a complicated thing. It's me, you, love. Let's go.
Simon BeaufoyIf India won her freedom through truth and non-violence, India would not only point the way to all the exploited Asiatic nations, she would become a torch-bearer for the Negro races.
Mahatma GandhiIndia was the motherland of our race and Samskrit the mother of Europe 's languages...Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
Will DurantBuddha is the crown jewel of the Indian nation which accepts all ways of worship of all religions. This quality of Hinduism in India was a product of many great spiritual masters chief among them was Buddha. And this is what sustains the secular character of India.
Narendra ModiGod forbid that India should ever become a military nation, which would be a menace to the peace of the world, and yet if things went on as they were doing, what hope was there for India and, therefore, for the world?
Mahatma GandhiMandela didn't end Apartheid in South Africa, the poor guy was in jail for 27 years, it was the African people that ended it but he was a symbol of their struggle. Or Gandhi in India, Gandhi was a great believer in non-violence and he was in and out of jail, but India became free. I think it's better to look at what people can do collectively and that's why it's so important to encourage them.
Tony BennIndia's saving rate will go up. India's investment rate will go up. And I believe that's a plus point.
Manmohan SinghTo the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.
Alan WattsNo one is perfect and everyone is different, but everyone one is beautiful in their own way and that's what makes us special.For me, it went beyond being a beauty queen. For me, it was about being the 20-year-old girl from India on international platform and a lot of people actually would assume that I wasn`t even educated in India because of the way I'd speak.
Aishwarya Rai BachchanSome kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both India and Pakistan. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces. This is feeding right back into society even in the domain of elementary civil rights.
Noam ChomskyOne hundred years from now, I expect the Tatas to be much bigger than it is now. More importantly, I hope the Group comes to be regarded as being the best in India.. best in the manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver, and best in our value systems and ethics. Having said that, I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India.
Ratan TataTelecom is a dramatic success in India and our view is, respecting the political process, and respecting the fact that these are sovereign decisions, is that, approaching India as a friend.
John W. SnowIn the south of India, they educated girls. Three things came together in southern India that are unbelievably coincidental. There, the local Maharajas believed in education for everybody. The Syrian Catholic Church built schools for boys and girls. And then the Communist party, which took over politics for a period of time, had very strong social policies that benefited women. As a result, girls got into school. It was the first part of the country where towns could claim to be 100 percent literate. And so there, you're going to have a sex ratio at birth that's normal.
Barbara CrossetteTo be sure, India has achieved enviable success in business services, like the glistening call centers in Bangalore and elsewhere. But in the global jousting for manufacturing jobs, India does not get its share.
Steven RattnerMother India has 250 crore arms, majority of which are of the youth, who have the capacity to fulfil India's dreams!
Narendra ModiIn Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resultedโBalder, Persephoneโbut [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.
E. M. ForsterIndia is a country of 1.25 billion people. We can't run our country if we get worried about every small thing. At the same time, we can't close our eyes to problems. That's why India maintains that we are now in a different era. We are not living in the eighteenth century. China is also a country with an ancient cultural heritage. Look at how it has focused on economic development. It's hardly the sign of a country that wants to be isolated. It wants to stay connected.
Narendra ModiI believe that the civilization India evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation.
Mahatma GandhiIndia has seen a dream of Digital India. From latest science to latest technology, everything should be available at the tip of one's finger.
Narendra ModiA free India will throw all her weight in favour of world disarmament and should herself be prepared to give a lead in this.
Mahatma GandhiAt the beginning of the 20th century, there were less than 3 billion people on the earth, closer to 2 billion. By all measures that we can come up with right now,. with the lifestyle and consumption pattern of the Western industrial civilization, we can probably sustain about 2 billion people on this earth. We already have over 6 billion. China and India are aspiring to come on as industrial nations, aspiring to the lifestyle of the Western world, and it simply can't happen.
Edgar MitchellDams are the temples of secular India and almost worshipped. They are huge, wet cement flags that wave in our minds. They're the symbol of nationalism to many.
Arundhati RoyWe should not play like Australia or India or England - we should play like Sri Lanka.
Mahela JayawardeneTwo things in India are religion - one is cricket, and one is movies - these are two things.
Preity ZintaFollowing the devastating India Ocean tsunami of 2004, I founded Chefs for Humanity, modeled after Doctors Without Borders, but comprised of chefs. There wasn't anything out there like it, and there was a definite need for chefs to be able to offer assistance and aid to those suffering from hunger and/or malnutrition worldwide.
Cat CoraAll in all it was a smooth race, the car was very well balanced. I'm very proud to be the first winner here in India.
Sebastian VettelMany people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me -- there is nothing between.
Mother TeresaThe social problem is that we haven't come up with any alternative models. Our culture hasn't developed an ars erotica. Think, for example, of conditions in India or in Japanese culture and of how the erotic has been cultivated there. They're not as clinical and rabbit-like as we are.
Volkmar SiguschI find it very difficult to relate to India's new middle class. This very patriotic and neoliberal group that mixes religion and economics together. I find them very irksome. Very difficult to like. They are privileged, but they don't want to talk about their privilege. It's difficult to find poetry amongst these people. Some sort of hidden spirit of beauty.
Sarnath BanerjeeThe need of the hour is to think big. The more we focus on skill, scale & speed, it will increase India's growth trajectory.
Narendra ModiWe want the children to conform; we want to control their minds, to shape their conduct, their way of living, so that they will fit into the pattern of society, That is what every parent wants, is it not? And that is exactly what is happening, whether it be in America or in Europe, in Russia or in India. The pattern may vary slightly, but they all want the child to conform.
Jiddu Krishnamurti