Popular quotes about India! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 18
If you write a lovely story about India, you're criticized for selling an exotic version of India. And if you write critically about India, you're seen as portraying it in a negative light - it also seems to be a popular way to present India, sort of mangoes and beggars.
Kiran DesaiIf 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 NehruI think taking the biggest star in India and the biggest star in America, and putting them together in a movie that starts in America and ends up in India, or starts in India and goes to America. I think it would be a buddy cop formula.
Brett RatnerIndia is more than a sum of its contradictions, any truism about India can be contradicted with another truism. There is no fixed stereotype. But even thinking about India makes clear the immensity of the nation-building challenge.
Shashi TharoorWe 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 NiveditaThe seven things that make up the rainbow of India's development are India's strong and deep rooted family system, Agriculture-Animal development, India's Matru Shakti (women power), Natural Resources (Jal, Jameen, Jungle), Youth power, Vibrant Democracy and Knowledge.
Narendra ModiSo 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 RoyIndia is scared of the competition... because Chinese goods will go into India and compete.
Lee Kuan YewI can say that China has been cooperating with India to search for solutions. On some issues, it's a question of principles for them. On some issues, it's a question of principles for us. On some issues they differ with us and there are issues on which we differ with them. There are some basic differences. But the most important thing is that we can speak to China eye-to-eye and put forth India's interests in the most unambiguous manner.
Narendra ModiI have always tried to keep an honest, age-appropriate line of communication open with my daughter,India, even during the teen years, a painful time of development when they usually shut down, and the last person they want to speak to is a parent. But India would always tell me what was going on, so I really encourage people to be as open with your children as you possibly can.
Eric BenetMandela 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 BennIt is time that India legally respected the rights of LGBT persons. It is very sad that this is not enshrined in Indian law in India so far, but I do believe that soon, we will come on par with respecting the individuality of people with different sexualities.
Kabir BediIndia has two million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.
Mark TwainA lot has changed in India in the last decade. We can attribute the growth of India's startup ecosystem to the increased penetration of affordable smartphones and data connectivity across the country. Technology is no longer a luxury. People across generation and geographies are making use of mobile technologies. Startups have capitalised on this phenomenon.
Bhavin TurakhiaYou will see India as a country of opportunities, unmatched across the world. India can be a role model of growth and cohesiveness for the rest of the world.
Narendra ModiThe first issue that compelled me was a very strange split between India being highly development scientifically (we were the third biggest scientific manpower in the world then) and yet at the same time struggling with amazing poverty. The linear equation that says that modern science equals progress and the reduction of poverty did not apply to India. It wasn't working.
Vandana ShivaThere is a saying in India that the person who should throw a stone first is the person who has not committed any sins. In the world right now, a lot of people want to give advice. But look within them, and they too have sinned in some way. Ultimately, India's view point is that efforts need to be made to sit together and talk, and to resolve problems in an ongoing process.
Narendra ModiI never was a hippie! I went to India because so many friends like Mia Farrow and The Beatles were going there to discover truth. And so I went and trekked through India by myself, but instead of discovering truth, I wanted to join the Peace Corps.
Jane FondaLet me remind you that you have a two-fold task to perform. With the force of arms and at the cost of your blood you will have to win liberty. Then, when India is free, you will have to organize the permanent army of Free India, whose task it will be to preserve our liberty for all time. We must build up our national defense on such an unshakable foundation that never again in our history shall we lose our freedom.
Subhas Chandra BoseSince every school in India teaches English, why can't it be our link language? Why do Tamils have to study English for communication with the world and Hindi for communications within India? Do we need a big door for the big dog and a small door for the small dog? I say, let the small dog use the big door too!
C. N. AnnaduraiI can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque India belongs only to me.
Amrita Sher-GilAlexander's achievement was not the conquest of India, but the feat of actually getting there and his two years in India were more of a geographical expedition than a military campaign. .... a Greek army had reached what they regarded as the end of the earth. They had pitted themselves against the ultimate as bravely as the yogins had struggled to break through the limits of the human psyche. Where mystics had conquered interior space, Alexander explored the farthest reaches of the physical world. .... like many of the axial sages, he was constantly 'straining after more'.
Karen ArmstrongDo you share my belief in Swami Vivekananda's dream that India will be a Jagad Guru once again? I see no reason for India to be left behind.
Narendra ModiIn India, it's the rich who have problems with obesity. And the poor are darker-skinned because they work outside and often work without their tops on so you can see their ribs.
Aravind AdigaWhen you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project.
Arundhati RoyWe do not need men and women from other planets to develop India. Our people, our youth are skilled.
Narendra ModiMS Dhoni showed India what a tough man from a small town could dream and achieve. He has been a role model. Respect.
Harsha BhogleTwo things in India are religion - one is cricket, and one is movies - these are two things.
Preity ZintaAs long as we place millions of Indians at the canter of our thought process, as long as we think of their welfare, their future, their opportunities for self realization we are on the right track. For India can grow, prosper, flourish only if they grow, prosper, flourish. We cannot grow by any esoteric strategies. Our purchasing power, our economic strength, our marketplace all depends on the prosperity of our people.
Mukesh AmbaniIndia is once again ready to play the role of 'Vishvaguru' and work towards the benefit of mankind.
Narendra ModiThe most distinctive and largest contribution of Hinduism to India's culture is the doctrine of ahimsa.
Mahatma GandhiWhen I came back to India after Harvard Business School, I started as a lawyer and as a trade union leader.
P. ChidambaramI can assure our countrymen that India is safe in the hands of the brave warriors of our Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.
Narendra ModiI am just not thinking of India's deliverance. It will come, but will it be worth if England and France fall, or if they come out victorious over Germany ruined and humbled?
Mahatma GandhiInterestingly, what the bourgeois women's groups in India wanted to do in the nationalist period is to have the peasant women essentially follow them... They would be the leaders and the peasant women would be the masses.
Vijay PrashadIn a country like India, the British were only able to rule the country because it had completely co-opted the elite of the country, who did their work for them.
Arundhati RoyThere was this big skiffle craze happening for a while in England.... Everybody was in a skiffle group..All you needed was an acoustic Guitar, a washboard with thimbles for percussion, and a tea-chest- you know, the ones they used to ship tea from India- and you just put a broom handle on it and a bit of string, and you had a bass..you only needed two chords; Jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing jing-jinga-jing. And I think that's basically where i've always been at. I'm just a skiffler, you know. Now I do posh skiffle, that's all it is.
George HarrisonOne of the great ironies is that the impact of the flattening world has not been to empower decentralized rural land, but to strengthen the cities in China and India and elsewhere that are gateways between those countries and the West. It's deeply wise for the Chinese to be pro-urban in terms of development. They're creating space for ideas and human capital to be developed.
Edward GlaeserDisorder and violence are, in fact, things that might check the pace of India's progress.
Mahatma GandhiThe principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagation of the holy Catholic faith.
Ignatius of LoyolaI am very interested in human-interest stories emerging from modern India. I get my inspiration and daily dose by reading the Hindustan Times.
Vikas SwarupI've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.
Mira NairIf farmers become weak the country loses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India.But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the living standard of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers.
Rajiv GandhiIn the west we think of yoga as an exercise programme, when actually where it's from in India it's a whole philosophy. The Asanas and the exercise programme are one tiny aspect of it, and so it really, really fascinates me.
Jayne MiddlemissIlliteracy does not impede the practice of democracy, as witnessed by the success of democracy in India despite the high illiteracy rate. One doesn't need a university diploma to realize that the ruler is oppressive and corrupt. On the other hand, to eradicate illiteracy requires that we elect a fair and efficient political regime.
Alaa Al Aswany