Quotes

By Author

Like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a

moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material

Andrei Sakharov

existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a

life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the
right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the

Aristotle

right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's

power and is not easy.

For me, some combination of righteous refusal, enlightened self-interest,
reasoned negotiation and compensatory justice is the correct path to

BR Ambedkar

liberty and social equality.

There is no nation of Indians in the real sense of the word. The nation

does not exist, it is to be created.

It is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities. It is

equally wrong for minorities to perpetuate themselves.

Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your

path
Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil, which is

Bhagwad Gita

essentially undemocratic.
To action alone you have a right
And never at all to its fruits
Let not the fruits of action be your goal
But neither let there be in you any attachment to inaction
The psychological conflict for health, prosperity, self control, and wisdom
has to be started anew each day in order for man to advance toward
victory, reclaiming inch by inch the territories of the soul occupied by the

Desmond Tutu
EB White

rebels of ignorance.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, then you have chosen the side

of the oppressor.
I arise in the morning torn b/w a desire to improve the world and a desire

to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known
defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found

Elisabeth Kbler-

their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation,

Ross

sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion,

gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just

Gary Kasparov

happen.
He who knows how will always have a job,

Quotes

George Orwell

George
Santayana

disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying,

since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
Those who forget history are condemned to relive it.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
Santayana is broadly included among the pragmatists. He said that he

stood in philosophy "exactly where he stood in daily life."

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never

George W Bush

Immanuel Kant
Isaiah Berlin

stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and

neither do we.
When moral worth is at issue, what counts is not actions, which one sees,

but those inner principles of action that one does not see.
Hatred lends sharpness to vision as much as love: one can learn more

from enemies than from friends.

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is

not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. Julius Caesar
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures
"Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own" - Hamlet
A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin

himself among so many who are not so good.

I would go to the length of giving the whole congress a decent burial,

rather than put up with the corruption that is rampant. (May 1939)
The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their

mission can alter the course of history.

Refuting the charge that he or his NCM were a manifestation of

Shakespeare

Machiavelli
Mahatma Gandhi

He who also knows why will always be his boss...

An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something

xenophobia, Gandhi said: I hope I am as great a believer in free air as the

great Poet (Tagore). I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides
and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be
blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off

by any.
The radical test of our ability to coexist would not be the ability to parrot
principles. It would be the ability to understand each others anxieties and

fears.
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not
dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in

Quotes
our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He

Martin Luther Jr.

is part of it.
There are so many hungry people that God cannot appear to them

except in the form of bread.

Take the 1st step in faith. You dont have to see the whole staircase, just

take the 1st step.

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300
games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning

Michael Jordan

Newton

shot, and I missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my

life. And that is precisely why I succeed.

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.
If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had

never made anything.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any
one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for
others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture

Orhan Pamuk
(Museum of
Innocence)

Oscar Wilde

without making sure of anything.

The profound happiness I felt made me anxious. I was confused, my soul
teetering between the danger of taking this joy too seriously and the
crassness of taking it too lightly. (46)
Happiness no longer seemed Gods gift to me from birth; no longer was it
the right I could claim without effort; it had become a state of grace that
only the luckiest, brightest, and most cautious people could attain, and
with the most assiduous cultivation. (158)
There was still one part of my mind sound enough to see things clearly,
and it was telling me that a chapter of my life was now coming to a close,
but the greater part of me was still too anxious and fearful of being alone
to let me accept this truth. (208)
We all are in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.
"Truth is the infinite pursued by metaphysics; fact is the infinite pursued
by science."
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary

Rabindranath
Tagore

desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever widening thought and

Ralph Waldo
Emerson

action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let the world awake.
"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable,
to be compassionate, and to have it make some difference that you have

Quotes

Rang De Basanti

lived and lived well."

"Sometimes a person can be pushed so far that they reach a point beyond
fear; a place where you find a strange peace, where you free yourself to

do the right thing; because sometimes, that's the hardest thing to do."
''Smother yourself in fashion at your peril. These are your flesh and blood,
rough and honest, your barbarian ancestry. They made you Dutch, so
banish your embarrassment, embrace them, honor them. For everything
that you think matters, doesn't. The town hall, with all its acres of marble,
could go tomorrow. Amsterdam can sink back into the sea again. As long
as you have your rough freedom, you have all you need to stay Dutch.

Rembrandt

Stephen Hawking

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of

knowledge."
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life think of it, dream of it,

Swami

live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body,

Vivekananda

be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way

Thomas Jefferson
VS Naipaul

Walter Lippmann

to success.
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to

become nothing, have no place in it."

Above all the other necessities of human nature, above the satisfaction of
any other need, above hunger, love, pleasure, fame even life itself
what a man most needs is the conviction that he is contained within the
discipline of an ordered existence.

Quotes

By Topic
Ambition
1. Through the figure of Pericles, Thucydides shows us how to live a life of civilized
ambition, in which individual achievement is fused with patriotic service.
Art
1. This is what drives the very greatest art contempt for ingratiation!
Books
1. Books cant carve your convictions about the world. Only life can do that only
relationships, struggle, love, play and work. Books can give you vocabularies and
frameworks to help you understand and decide, but life provides exactly the education
you need.
2. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
Caste
1. Focusing on political democracy while doing little to achieve social democracy was to
build a palace on a dung heap. Ambedkar
Civil Services
1. It is widely recognized that no profession offers the kind of opportunity and authority for
participating in nation building and societal transformation as does a career in the civil
services.
Democracy
1. My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as
the strongest. Mahatma Gandhi
2. All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. Alfred Emanuel Smith
3. Democracy means tolerance, tolerance not merely of those who agree with us, but those
who do not agree with us. Jawaharlal Nehru
Economics
1. It is in the transition that we actually have our being. Keynes
2. The market is a good servant but a bad master. Economics maxim (sometimes applied
to money )
Education
1. Mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. Plutarch

Quotes
Government
1. Congress in session is Congress on exhibition; Congress in Committees is Congress at
work. Woodrow W
2. The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. Fyodor
Dostoevsky
3. Democratic Government demands not only a parliamentary majority but also a
parliamentary minority. - Ivor Jennings
4. An amendment is a constitutional alternative of revolution. SC in Golaknath vs. State of
Punjab (1967)
Human Development
1. Development is the best contraceptive. Health Minister 1975
2. There are no disabled people only people. Henri Viscardi
3. And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with
access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property
accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority
of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little
screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and
knit the repressed. The Grapes of Wrath
Hope
1. Hope, the thing with feathers, often bears little resemblance to realities on the ground.
Emily Dickinson
2. Crisis and deadlocks when they occur have atleast this advantage that they force us to
think. Nehru
Ideas
1. Empires of the future are the empires of the minds Churchill
2. No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come Victor Hugo
3. History of progress of mankind is a history of informed dissent.
Ideologies
1. You cannot be liberal by halves. You cannot be liberal in politics and conservative in
religion. The heart and the head must go together MG Ranade
India
1. "India is home to all that is truly noble and truly disgusting in human experience." Nehru
2. The temptation in democratic politics is to buy the peace by being seen to be doing
things, rather than doing what is going to be effective. Pratap Bhanu Mehta
3. On all the problems in India, the pessimist shakes his head in despair, but the optimist
sees teething problems that will be overcome, that must be overcome.
4. No modern state, however benign its political system, and however eloquent its public
voices may be, about the virtues of tolerance, multiculturalism and inclusion, is free of the

Quotes
idea that its national sovereignty is built on some sort of ethnic genius Appadurai
(2006).
5. "Those who dream of bleeding India dry through a thousand cuts will drown in their own
hatred, before our great nation runs out of either blood or spirit." Tharoor (on Pakistan)
6. In India one lives simultaneously in the 12th and 21st centuryas well as in all centuries
in between. - U R Ananthamurthy
7. Anything that can be done by God or man has been done in this land. - Mark Twain
8. India is perhaps the most important country for the future of the world. All the convergent
influences of the world run through this society: Hindu, Muslim, Christian, secular, Stalinist,
liberal, Maoist, democratic socialist, Gandhian. There is not a thought that is being thought
in the West or East that is not active in some Indian mind. - E P Thompson, the great
British historian
Leadership
1. Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable, Obama said at one point.
Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities.
Any given decision you make youll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isnt
going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the
decision. You cant be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out. On top of all of
this, after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People
being led do not want to think probabilistically.
2. "Face the problem. Don't evade it. Find a solution, however small. People will be satisfied if
you do something." Kamaraj
3. "A human being should be able to heal a wound, plan an expedition, order from a French
menu, climb a mountain face, enjoy a ballet, balance accounts, roll a kayak, embolden a
friend, tell a joke, laugh at himself, cooperate, act alone, sing a children's song, solve
equations, throw a dog a stick, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, love
heartily, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Lew Hitchner
4. Statesman is one who can perform the amazing feat of being always guided by
circumstances while never losing sight of principles. Burke
5. You can buy a man's time, you can buy a man's physical presence at a certain place, you
can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you
cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy
the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things. Clarence Francis

Motivation
1. "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be
ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be"
2. "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."
3. "Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, usually do." Unknown

Quotes
4. Being realistic is the quickest path to mediocrity.
5. "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If
you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to
pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
6. When the rare chance comes, seize it; To do the rare deed. Thiruvalluvar, Kural
7. The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. That means
that line is not out there. That's a decision that you have to make, a personal thing.
8. To be a hero, you have to learn to be a deviant, because you're always going against the
conformity of the group. Heroes are ordinary people whose social actions are
extraordinary. The key to heroism is two things. A. You have to act when other people are
passive. B: You have to act socio-centrically, not egocentrically.
9. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. REINHOLD NIEBUHR
Politics
1. In politics the lows are lower than the highs are high. That is, when politicians mess up,
the size of the damage they cause is larger than the size of the benefit they create when
they do well.
Poverty
1. The difference b/w rich and poor is not wealth, but opportunity. Muhammad Yunus
Reason
1. Jab dil bhara ho aur dimag khali, to kisko charcha mein ruchi hogi? ("When the heart is
possessed and the mind is empty, who will then be interested in deliberations?") -- Hazari
Prasad Dwivedi
2. "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." -- William James
Religion
1. To be good and to do good, is the whole of Religion Swami Vivekananda (SV)
Strategy
1. "Strategy is art of connecting resources in order to complete certain ends."
Tolerance
1. Rig-Veda Ekam Satyam Viprah Bahuda Vadanti : Truth is One, Educated call it by
different Names
2. It is compassion, the most gracious of virtues,
Which moves the world.
Thiruvalluvar, Kural

Quotes
War
1. To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. George
2.

Washington
Do not hope for Platos utopia, but be content to make a very small step forward and
reflect that the result even of this is no trifle. Marcus Aurelius
For much of his reign, the emperor was at constant war, stamping out rebellions by
barbarian tribes and rival powers in a perpetual struggle to secure trade and imperial
order. From Marcus Aurelius, though, leaders ought to learn that perpetual war is the
inexorable consequence of the pursuit of peace.

Women
1. Original sin in the Garden of Eden was woman's. She tasted the forbidden fruit, tempted
Adam and has been paying for it ever since. In Genesis, the Lord said, 'I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee'.
Sociologists would regard the above quotation as a mythological justification for the
position of women in society. Many women might see the summary it contains of their
relationship with their spouses as affair description of their status through the ages.

Quotes

Exam-specific collection
Polity

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country JFK
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. - Thomas Jefferson
History of progress of mankind is a history of informed dissent.
My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have same opportunity as the
strongest. Gandhi
All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. Alfred Emanuel Smith (US
Statesman)
Democratic govt. demands not only a parliamentary majority but also a parliamentary
minority Ivor Jennings
Asia is rich in people, rich in culture and rich in resources. It is also rich in trouble.- H
Humphrey
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by
private citizens. Alexis de Tocqueville
Administrators are not born but made Laxmi Kant Jha IAS (ex-RBI Guv)
A government builds its prestige upon the apparently voluntary association of the governed.
Gandhi
The measure of a country's greatness should be based on how well it cares for its most
vulnerable populations. - Gandhi
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is
the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves - Mahatma Gandhi
"It is in the life, thoughts and actions of the average man and woman that the solid strength
of a nation really lies" Gokhale
No democracy can hope to be self-guaranteeing; but the longer it endures, the more it is able
to develop resources to endure still further in time. Khilnani
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into
a despot.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would
be necessary

Economics

Development is the best contraceptive. Health Minister 1975

The market is a good servant but a bad master. Economics maxim (Socialists)
The difference b/w rich and poor is not wealth, but opportunity. Muhammad Yunus

Ethics

Rig-Veda Ekam Satyam Viprah Bahuda Vadanti : Truth is One, Educated call it by different
Names
What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others. Confucius
With malice towards none, with charity for all. Abraham Lincoln
It is compassion, the most gracious of virtues, Which moves the world. Thiruvalluvar,
Kural
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Gandhi
In a gentle way, you can shake the world. Gandhi

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Quotes

Passion is a muscle that gets stronger with use. Gandhi

If untouchability lives, Hinduism must die. Gandhi
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. Margaret mead

Education & Health

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. Aristotle
You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.
Brigham Young
The real safeguard of democracy is education. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have. Winston S. Churchill
Future

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward
with strong and active faith. FD Roosevelt
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable Martin Luther King

Truth Alone Triumphs

Non-violence is the topmost Dharma
God seen even in Plants
Let good thoughts come from everywhere - from all the world
All Spiritual Paths are treated Equally
The whole World is one single Family
May all be prosperous and happy
May all be free from illness
One who is a true devotee of God - Feels the pain of others
Service of the poor is equivalent in importance and piety to the
service of God
If a human being Acts He can become god
Woman you are a veritable Goddess

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