Best Quotes for Essay Writing in UPSC Civil Services Main Examination
Best Quotes for Essay Writing in UPSC Civil Services Main Examination
· With the introduction of Essay Paper in the
year 1992 in the UPSC Civil Services Exam by the commission, it is now a known
thing to every aspirant that how important is essay paper in assessing one’s
skills and abilities as the marks scored by a candidate in essay paper is also
considered for the final round (interview) in UPSC Exam.
· It is a part of a UPSC civil services
aspirant’s armour to learn quotations to sprinkle in his/her answers,
particularly in the essay, ethics and also the general studies papers.
· Quoting effectively is important because the
right quotation presented properly can add spice, interest, thought,
effectiveness, support, and respect to your writing.
· Quoting ineffectively makes your writing look
like an amateur attempt padded by random comments from strangers.
Aristotle
“All persons ought to endeavor to follow
what is right, and not what is established.”
“Educating the mind without educating
the heart is no education at all.”
“No great mind ever existed without a
touch of madness.”
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is
sweet.”
“Poverty is the parent of revolution and
crime.”
“The whole is greater than sum of its
parts.”
“We
are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
“Every man takes the limits of his own
field of vision for the limits of the world.”
“One should use common words to say
uncommon things.”
“Religion
is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to
how they shall think.”
Jeremy
Bentham
“Rarest of all human quality is
consistency.”
“The question is not, can they reason?
Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?”
“The said truth is that it is the
greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and
wrong.”
“Stretching his hand up to reach the
stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”
“Every law is an infraction of liberty.”
“The greatest happiness of the greatest
number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
“The power of the lawyer is in the
uncertainty of the law.”
“Lawyers are the only persons in whom
ignorance of the law is not punished.”
“It is vain to talk of the interest of
the community, without understanding what the interest of the individual is.”
“Tyranny
and anarchy are never far apart.”
“The
age we live in is a busy age; in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards
perfection.”
Bertrand
Russell
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion,
for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
“If there were in the world today any
large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired
the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.”
“Longing for love, search for knowledge
and unbearable pity for the suffering of the mankind.”
“Not to be absolutely certain, is one of
the essential things in rationality.”
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is
that in modern world the stupids are cocksure while the intelligent are full of
doubt.”
“The hardest thing in life is which
bridge to cross and which to burn.”
“War
does not determine who is right – only who is left.”
B
R Ambedkar
“I measure the progress of a community
by the degree of progress which women have achieved.”
“Life should be great rather than long.”
“Prayer of the god lead to salvation in
the temples but in politics it lead to the dictatorship”
“Rights are protected not by law but by
the social and moral conscience of the society."
“If our Constitution fails, it is not
because it is a bad Constitution; but because our functionaries have failed
it.”
“India as a nation in real sense had to
be created”
"It
is easy to give power, it is difficult to give wisdom"
Benjamin
Franklin
“An investment in knowledge always pays
the best interest.”
“Either write worth reading or do
something worth writing.”
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a
man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
“He that can have patience can have what
he will.”
“If
everyone is thinking alike then no one is thinking.”
“Instead of cursing the darkness, light
a candle.”
“It is the first responsibility of every
citizen to question authority.”
“Justice will not be served until those
who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
“Lost
time is never found again.”
Charles
Dickens
“It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times.”
“Have a heart that never hardens, and a
temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
“No one is useless in this world who
lightens the burdens of another.”
“Reflect upon your present blessings --
of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men
have some.”
“A
loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
Confucius
“Before you embark on a journey of
revenge, dig two graves.”
“Consideration
for others is the basis of a good life and good society.”
“Don’t adjust the goals, adjust the
action steps.”
“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you
will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save
his life.”
“Hold faithfulness and sincerity as
first principles.”
“If your plan is for one year plant
rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one
hundred years educate children.”
“It does not matter how slowly you go as
long as you do not stop.”
“It’s a universal law — intolerance is
the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with
arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never
falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
“The
man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a
fool for life.”
Albert
Einstein
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has
never tried anything new.”
“Any fool can know. The point is to
understand.”
“Blind belief in authority is the
greatest enemy of truth.”
“Coincidence
is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
“Education is what remains after one has
forgotten what one has learned in school.”
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge
a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing
that it is stupid.”
“Everything must be made as simple as
possible. But not simpler.”
“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent
hard work.”
“Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
“Gravitation is not responsible for
people falling in love.”
“Imagination is more important than
knowledge.”
“If you can’t explain it to a six year
old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
“I speak to everyone in the same way,
whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”
“I have no special talents. I am only
passionately curious.”
“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a
cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
“I know not with what weapons World War
III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“It
is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”
“If people are good only because they
fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”
“If there is any religion that could
respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.”
“In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity.”
“Logic will get you from A to Z;
imagination will get you everywhere.”
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep
your balance, you must keep moving.”
“Learn from yesterday, live for today,
hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
“Never memorize something that you can
look up.”
“Only a life lived for others is a life
worthwhile.”
“Only those who attempt the absurd can
achieve the impossible.”
“There are two ways to live your life.
One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle.”
“The hardest thing in the world to
understand is the income tax.”
“The tragedy of life is what dies inside
a man while he lives.”
“The woman who follows the crowd will
usually go no further than the crowd”
“Try
not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
“The world as we have created it is a
process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
“The world is a dangerous place to live,
not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do
anything about it.”
“What is right is not always popular and
what is popular is not always right.”
“We all know that light travels faster
than sound. That’s why certain people appear bright until you hear them speak.”
“What a sad era when it is easier to
smash an atom than a prejudice.”
“When you are courting a nice girl an
hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like
an hour. That’s relativity.”
“You
never fail until you stop trying.”
Frankin
Roosevelt
“The only thing we have to fear is the
fear itself.”
“The
test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who
have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”
Gauthama
Buddha
“Believe nothing, no matter where you
read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with
your own reason and your own common sense.”
“Do not believe in anything simply
because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is
spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is
found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the
authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because
they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and
analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to
the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
“Every morning we are born again. What
we do today is what matters most.”
“However many holy words you read,
however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon
them?”
George Washington
“99% of failures come from people who make
excuses.”
“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest
bidder.”
“Human happiness and moral duty are
inseparably connected.”
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then
dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
“Knowledge is in every country the surest
basis of public happiness.”
“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my
mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical
education I received from her.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Disobedience is the true foundation of
liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
“Dreams are touchstones of our characters.”
“I learned this, at least, by my
experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a
success unexpected in common hours.”
“Never look back unless you are planning
to go that way.”
“Our life is frittered away by detail.
Simplify, simplify.”
“Things do not change, we change.”
“This
world is but a canvas for our imagination.”
H.
Jackson Brown Jr.
“Don’t
say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per
day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa,
Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
Immanuel
Kant
“Act
in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the
person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same
time as an end.”
“Dare to think!”
“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard
also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment
of animals.”
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom
is organized life.”
“Seek not the favor of the multitude; it
is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and
number not voices, but weigh them.”
“All our knowledge begins with the
senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is
nothing higher than reason.”
“Experience without theory is blind, but
theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
“It is beyond a doubt that all our
knowledge that begins with experience.”
“Morality is not properly the doctrine
of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of
happiness.”
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason,
but of imagination.”
“Thoughts without content are empty,
intuitions without concepts are blind.”
“Live
your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.”
“In
law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is
guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
John
F. Kennedy
“Ask not what your country can do for
you; ask what you can do for your country.
“A man may die, nations may rise and
fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”
“A child miseducated is a child lost.”
“A journey to thousand miles begins with
one step.”
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and
the enemy of growth”
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget
their names.”
“Mankind must put an end to war – or war
will put an end to mankind.”
“One person can make a difference, and
everyone should try.”
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to
write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for
opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the
opportunity.”
“The
rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
“To those whom much is given, much is
expected.”
“Those who dare to fail miserably can
achieve greatly.”
“The supreme reality of our time is the
vulnerability of our planet.”
“Without debate, without criticism no
administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
“We
need men who can dream of things that never were.”
Leo
Tolstoy
“A man is like a fraction whose
numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The
larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.”
“Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself.”
“To get rid of enemy one must love him.”
“Wrong
does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
Mahatma
Gandhi
“The
best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“An eye for an eye only ends up making
the whole world blind.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh
at you, then they fight you, then y
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in
the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
“Strength does not come from physical
capacity. It comes from indomitable will.”
“The good man is the friend of all
living things.”
“Intolerance is itself a form of
violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.”
“The greatness of a nation can be judged
by the way its animals are treated.”
“I suppose leadership at one time meant
muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”
“There are people in the world, so
hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
“Violent means will give violent
freedom.”
“There is higher courts than courts of
justice and that is conscience.”
“To believe in something, and not to
live it, is dishonesty.”
“Always
aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying
your thoughts and everything will be well.”
“A No uttered from deepest conviction is
better than a YES merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”
“Be the change that you wish to see in
the world.”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every
man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.”
“First they ignore you, then they
ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
“God has no religion.”
“Happiness is when what you think, what
you say and what you do are in harmony.”
“In doing something, do it with love or
never do it at all.”
“In a gentle way you can shake the
world.”
“My Life is My Message.”
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
“Seven Deadly Sins.
Wealth without
work;
Pleasure without
conscience;
Science without
humanity;
Knowledge
without character;
Politics without
principle;
Commerce without
morality;
Worship without
sacrifice.”
“The
future depends on what you do today.”
“There are people in the world so
hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
“The simplest acts of kindness are by
far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no
less precious than that of a human being.”
“The difference between what we do and
what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s
problems.”
“Your beliefs become your thoughts; your
thoughts become your words; your words become your actions; your actions become
your habits; your habits become your values; your values become your destiny.”
“You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean
does not become dirty.”
“You can chain me, you can torture me,
you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
“A man is the product of his thoughts.
What he thinks, he becomes.”
“Before
you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest most helpless
destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, Is What I am about to do going
to help him?”
Martin
Luther King
“A right delayed is a right denied.”
“A man who won’t die for something is
not fit to live.”
“Darkness can’t drive out darkness, only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
“Faith is taking the first step even
when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh
at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t
run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever may do you have to
keep moving forward.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere.”
“In matter of conscience, the law of
majority has no place.”
“It’s the action and not the fruit of
the action which is important.”
“It has always been a mystery to me how
men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.”
“If
a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a
Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will
pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
“If I cannot do great things, I can do
small things in a great way.”
“Lightning makes no sound until it
strikes.”
“Life’s most persistent and urgent
question is : “What are you doing for others?”
“Love is the only force capable of
transforming an enemy to a friend.”
“Never forget that everything Hitler did
in Germany was legal.”
“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a
duty as is cooperation with good.”
“Not everybody can be famous but
everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s
right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake.
Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul
when we look the other way.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we
become silent about things that matter.”
“There comes a time when one must take a
position that is neither safe,nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it
because conscience tells him it is right.”
“One
has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
“Our scientific power has outrun our
spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
“Public opinion alone can keep a society
pure and healthy.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness
is the attribute of the strong.”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at
times of challenge and controversy.”
“The time is always right to do the
right thing.”
“There comes a time when silence is
betrayal.”
“Victory attained by violence is
tantamount to defeat, for it is temporary.”
“We must accept finite disappointment,
but never lose infinite hope.”
“Wars
are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”
Mark
Twain
“Classic – a book people praise but don’t
learn.”
“God created war so that Americans would
learn Geography.”
“Kindness is a language which the deaf
can hear and the blind can see.”
“It
is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral
courage so rare.”
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have
to remember anything.”
“I do not fear death, I had been dead
for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the
slightest inconvenience from it.”
“The best way to cheer up yourself is to
try to cheer someone else up.”
“The
man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
Plato
“The
beginning is the most important part of the work.”
Socrates
“By all means marry; if you get a good
wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
“He who is not contented with what he
has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
“Know
thyself.”
“The unexamined life is not worth
living.”
“There
is only one good, knowledge and one evil ignorance.”
Tagore
“A mind all logic is like a knife all
blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”
“Don’t limit a child to your own
learning, for he was born in another time.”
“Everything comes to us that belong to
us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
“Faith is the bird that feels the light
when the dawn is still dark.”
“The butterfly counts not months but
moments, and has time enough.”
“You
can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
Thomas
A Edison
“5% of the people think; 10% of people
think they think and the other; 85% would rather die than think.”
“Genius is 1% inspiration, 99%
perspiration.”
“Good
fortune happens when opportunity meets preparation.”
“I have not failed. I’ve just found
10,000 ways that don’t work.”
“I never did a day’s work in my life, it
was all fun.”
“Many of life’s failures are people who
did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.”
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving
up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
“The most necessary task of civilization
is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public
schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise.
Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way
of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the
brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage
original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than
observation. “
“When
you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”
Thomas
Paine
“Independence
is my happiness; the world is my country; to do good my religion.”
“Those who expect to reap the blessings
of freedom must undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
“The mind once enlightened cannot again
become dark.”
“Whatever
is the right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to
guarantee as well as to possess.”
Thomas
Jefferson
“Determine never to be idle. No person
will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is
wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”
“Honesty is the first chapter of the
book of wisdom.”
“I can’t live without books.”
“I am a greater believer in luck, and I
find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
“On
matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle stand like a
rock.”
Mother
Teresa
“Peace begins with a smile.”
“If you can not feed a hundred people
than feed just one.”
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone,
person to person.”
“If we really want to love, we must
learn how to forgive.
“If
you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Democracy
“Democracy is the road to socialism.” –Karl
Marx
“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the
men of property, are the rulers.” – Aristotle
“Democracy is a faith in the spiritual
possibilities of not a privileged few but of every human being.” – Dr. S
Radhakrishnan
“Democracy is the theory that the common
people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H .L
.Mencken
“The rights of democracy are not reserved for
a select group within society, they are the rights of all the people.” – Olof
Palme
“Advertising is the very essence of
democracy.” – Anton Chekhov
“The best argument against democracy is a
five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill
“The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is
not so much dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a
democracy” – Montesquieu
“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” –
Abraham Lincoln
“There cannot be daily democracy without daily citizenship.” – Ralph Nader
” I understand democracy as something that
gives the weak the same chance as the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Democracy is not law of the majority but
protection of the minority.” – Albert Camus
“In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power, but
carries the ultimate responsibility.” – Norman Cousins
Sociology
“Racism is not about how you look, it’s about
how people assign meaning to how you look.” – Robin Kelley
“I measure the progress of a community by the
degree of progress which women have achieved.” – Ambedkar
“The proletarians have nothing to lose but
their chains.” – Karl Marx
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history.”
– Karl Marx
“From each according to his abilities, to
each according to his needs.” – Karl Marx
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy,
second as a farce.” – Karl Marx
“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without
innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill
“I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli
Governance
“Fighting corruption is not just good
governance. It’s self-defence. It’s patriotism.” – Joe Biden
“Democracy, good governance and modernity
cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.” – Émile Jamil Lahoud
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can
always depend on the support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw
“There never is a good time for tough
decisions. There will always be an election or something else. You have to pick
courage and do it. Governance is about taking tough, even unpopular,
decisions.”- Jairam Ramesh
“No man is good enough to govern another man
without the other's consent.”- Abraham Lincoln
“If people are good because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then
we are a sorry lot indeed.”- Albert Einstein
“It is time for the world, the hemisphere and
the region to make sure that relevant institutions of civil society and
relevant laws are embedded in the mechanisms of governance.”- Baldwin Spencer
“There never is a good time for tough
decisions. There will always be an election or something else. You have to pick
courage and do it. Governance is about taking tough, even unpopular,
decisions.”- Jairam Ramesh
“Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of
the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”- Albert Einstein
Environment
“We won’t have a society if we destroy the
environment.” – Margaret Mead
“We don’t have to sacrifice a strong economy
for a healthy environment.” – Dennis Weaver
“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans
to protect man.” – Stewart Udall
Education
“Education is the most powerful weapon you
can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn
as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Children must be taught how to think, not
what to think.” – Margaret Mead
“I have never let my schooling interfere with
my Education.” – Mark Twain
“Education is what remains after one has
forgotten what one has learnt in school.” – Einstein
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be
able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle
“Education is the manifestation of perfection
already in man.” – Swami Vivekananda
“You educate a man; you educate a man. You
educate a woman; you educate a generation.” ― Brigham Young
“Education is the ability to listen to almost
anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” ― Robert Frost
“The mind once enlightened cannot again
become dark.” ― Thomas Paine,
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ―
Confucius
Science and Religion
“All thinking men are atheists.” – Ernst
Hemingway
“Atheism is so senseless and odious to
mankind.”– Issac Newton
“The notion that Science and Spirituality are
somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” – Carl Sagan
“Science without Religion is lame and
Religion without Science is blind” – Einstein
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
– Christopher Hitchens
Materialism/Conusmerism
“A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby
clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.” – Confucius
“To live fully, we must use things and love people, not love things and use
people.” – Powell John
“The world has enough for everyone’s need but
not enough for everyone’s greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there
would be peace.” – John Lennon
Peace/Justice
“When the power of love overcomes the love of
power, the world will know peace.” – William Gladstone
“Peace and Justice are two sides of the same
coin.” – Eisenhower
“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the
only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” ―
John Lennon
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin
Luther King Jr.
“Peace begins with a smile.” - ― Mother Teresa
Poverty
“One would have thought that it was even more
necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed
by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in
married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so
common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is
the parent of revolution and crime.” - Aristotle
“There is a solitude in poverty, but a
solitude which restores to each thing its value.”- Albert Camus
“There have always been poor and working
classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always
been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today.”-
Friedrich Engels
“Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot
of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing
mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. This day we are spending five
hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one
we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three
dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the
so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.”-
Martin Luther King Jr.
“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.”- Bernard Shaw
“If a poor person envies a rich person, he is
no better than the rich person.”- Leo Tolstoy
“As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them
of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.” - Oscar Wilde
“We must address the root causes of terrorism
to end it for all time. I believe putting resources into improving the lives of
poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.” - Nobel Peace
Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Women
“Please don’t repeat such poetry which is
pictured by the red spots of kissing on the lips of beautiful women. Kunti, a
rustic old woman is now knocking door to door to search for a job. She is
beaten by her own sons.” - Manmohan Acharya
“Women eat double than men. They have four times more wisdom than men, they
have six times more courage, and eight times more sensual urge than men.” -
Chanakya
“Women who want to work deserve to work. And
whenever they are denied that opportunity, it’s not fair to them – and we all
lose out. In a competitive 21st century global economy, we cannot afford to
leave talent on the sidelines. When we leave people out or write them off, we
not only shortchange them and their dreams, we shortchange our country and our own
futures.” - Hillary Clinton
“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it
is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then,
indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then
woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not
more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not
greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of
our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to
the heart than woman?” - Mahatma Gandhi
“You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still
make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an
embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work.” - Barack Obama
Emotional Intelligence
“No one cares how much you know, until they
know how much you care.” -Theodore Roosevelt
“In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like
discipline, drive, and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.” -Daniel
Goleman
“Anyone can be angry--that is easy. But to be
angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the
right purpose, and in the right way--that is not easy.” -Aristotle
“Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“It is very important to understand that
emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the
triumph of heart over head--it is the unique intersection of both.” -David
Caruso
“Let's not forget that the little emotions
are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.”
-Vincent van Gogh
“I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-Antonio Gramsci
“It takes something more than intelligence to
act intelligently.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Napoleon
Bonaparte
“When people talk, listen completely. Most
people never listen.” -Ernest Hemingway
“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”
-Socrates
Growth
“Strength and growth come only through
continuous effort and struggle.” - Napoleon Hill
“The perfecting of one's self is the
fundamental base of all progress and all moral development.” - Confucius
“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we
don't grow, we aren't really living.” - Anatole France
“The strongest principle of growth lies in
human choice.” - George Eliot
“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act
without benefit of experience.” - Henry Miller
Caste
“A chair is not a caste.” - ― Victor Hugo
“You are free; you are free to go to your
temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship
in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that
has nothing to do with the business of the state.” - ― Muhammad Ali Jinnah
“I am neither a child, a young man, nor an
ancient; nor am I of any caste.” - Guru Nanak
“There is no caste in blood.” - Edwin Arnold
“Caste is a state of mind. It is a disease of
mind. The teachings of the Hindu religion are the root cause of this disease.
We practice casteism and we observe Untouchability because we are enjoined to
do so by the Hindu religion. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet. The taste of
anything can be changed. But poison cannot be changed into nectar.” - B. R.
Ambedkar
“Now I have no caste, no creed, I am no more
what I am!” - Kabir
“I
have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste
prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All
that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he
can't be any worse.” - Mark Twain
"Caste is not just a division of labour, it
is a division of labourers.” - B. R. Ambedkar
“I too belong to an OBC caste but I have
never used my community to get power.” - Narendra Modi
“Anyway, what is a country? When people say, "Tell me about
India," I say, "Which India? The land of poetry and mad rebellion?
The one that produces haunting music and exquisite textiles? The one that
invented the caste system and celebrates the genocide of Muslims and Sikhs and
the lynching of Dalits? The country of dollar billionaires? Or the one in which
800 million live on less than half-a-dollar a day? Which India?"-
Arundhati Roy
Media
“There
is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press
applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish
they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that
we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active
press.” - John F. Kennedy
“Early in life I had noticed that no event is
ever correctly reported in a newspaper.” - George Orwell
“The man who reads nothing at all is better
educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The most important service rendered by the
press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter
with distrust.” - Samuel Butler
“There are only two forces that can carry
light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the
Associated Press down here.” - Mark Twain
“The advertisements are the most truthful
part of a newspaper.” - Thomas Jefferson
“In the real world, nothing happens at the
right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to
correct that.” - Mark Twain
“Journalists are like dogs, whenever anything
moves they begin to bark.” - Arthur Schopenhauer
“If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens
our life with his lies.” - Karl Kraus
“The incredibly sinister role of the press, the cinema, the radio, has
consisted in passing that original reality through a pair of flattening rollers
to substitute for it a superimposed pattern of ideas an images with no real
roots in the deep being of the subject of this experiment.” - Gabriel Marcel
Panchayati Raj
“When the panchayat raj is established,
public opinion can do what violence can never do.” - Gandhi
“India is poor because villages of India are poor. India will be rich if
villages are rich. Panchayats should be given greater powers, for we want the
villages to have a greater measure of swaraj(self-government) in their own
villages.” - J.L. Nehru
Children
“If we have to bring real peace in the world,
we must begin with children” - Mahatma Gandhi
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in
which it treats its children". ― Mandela
“Child is the father of man”- William
Wordsworth
“Children are the world's most valuable
resource and its best hope for the future.” - John F. Kennedy
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book
you would not read yourself.” ― George Bernard Shaw
“Children must be taught how to think, not
what to think.” ― Margaret Mead
“It's the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.” ― Frank
Warren
Corruption
“He that accuses all mankind of corruption
ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.” - Edmund Burke
“In
the developing world, corruption is public enemy number one. Every dollar that
a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a
dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care; or from a girl or a
boy who deserves an education; or from communities that need water, roads, and
schools. Every dollar is critical if we are to reach our goals to end extreme
poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity.” - Jim Yong Kim, World Bank
Group President
“None of the governments, as they now exist,
is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence we see that nature warped and
corrupted; just as a foreign seed, when sown in an alien soil, generally loses
its native quality, and tends to be subdued and pass into the plant of the
country, even so this philosophic nature, so far from preserving its
distinctive power, now suffers a decline and takes on a different character.” -
Plato,
“The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of
society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.” - Theodore
Roosevelt
Development
“India is not, as people keep calling it, an
underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural
heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.” ― Shashi
Tharoor
“Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just
transforming economies.” ― Joseph E. Stiglitz
“If technical progress is not matched by
corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth then
it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.” - Pope
Benedict XVI
“Progress was often achieved by a
"criticism from the past". - Paul Feyerabend
“No country can really develop unless its
citizens are educated.” - Nelson Mandela
“Global interdependence today means that economic disasters in developing
countries could create a backlash on developed countries.” - Atal Bihari
Vajpayee
Honesty
“He who says that there is no such thing as
an honest man is himself a knave.” - George Berkeley,
“An honest man's the noblest work of God.” -
Alexander Pope
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.’ - William
Shakespeare
“Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of
ten thousand.” - William Shakespeare
“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue
enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the
character of an honest man.” - George Washington
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book of
wisdom.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Honesty is the best policy when there is
money in it.” - Mark Twain
“It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is
also very important to be right.” - Winston Churchill
“No such thing as a man willing to be honest
--that would be like a blind man willing to see.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
“We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children
that honesty is the best policy.” - George Bernard Shaw
Integrity
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and
useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.” - Samuel
Johnson
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” - Ralph
Waldo Emerson
“The person who is slowest in making a
promise is most faithful in its performance.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau
“In failing circumstances no one can be
relied on to keep their integrity.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I cannot and will not recant anything, for
to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no
other, so help me God. Amen”. - Martin Luther
“Nothing more completely baffles one who is
full of tricks and duplicity than straight forward and simple integrity in
another.” - Charles Caleb Colton
“Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is
right and stick to it.” - George Eliot
Truth
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to
remember anything.” ― Mark Twain
“A lie can travel half way around the world
while the truth is putting on its shoes.” ― Mark Twain
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” ― Oscar Wilde
“When I despair, I remember that all through
history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and
murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they
always fall. Think of it--always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
“A thing is not necessarily true because a
man dies for it.” ― Oscar Wilde
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but
most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” ―
Winston S. Churchill
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to
stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” ― Mark Twain
Compassion
“For there is nothing heavier than
compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with
someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a
hundred echoes.” ― Milan Kundera,
“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” ― Joseph Fort Newton
“Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul:
where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively
harmless.” - Eric Hoffer
“Until he extends his circle of compassion to
include all living things, man will not himself find peace.” - Albert
Schweitzer
“In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice
themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human
race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to
relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to
themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.” - Alexis de
Tocqueville
“The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong
principles of duty.” - Samuel Johnson
Empathy
“When people talk, listen completely. Most
people never listen.” ― Ernest Hemingway
“I do not ask the wounded person how he
feels, I myself become the wounded person.” ― Walt Whitman.
“If we can share our story with someone who
responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.” ― Brené Brown
Wisdom
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise
man knows himself to be a fool.” ― William Shakespeare
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all
wisdom.” ― Aristotle
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know
nothing.” ― Socrates
“In a good bookroom you feel in some
mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books
through your skin, without even opening them.” ― Mark Twain
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” ― Oprah
Winfrey
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First,
by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and
third by experience, which is the bitterest.” ― Confucius
“Angry people are not always wise.” ― Jane
Austen
“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with
no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” ― Patrick Rothfuss
“Don't Gain the World & Lose Your Soul, Wisdom Is Better Than Silver or
Gold.” ― Bob Marley
Politics
“There comes a time when one must take a
position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it
because conscience tells him it is right.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble,
finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong
remedies.” ― Groucho Marx
“What difference does it make to the dead,
the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the
name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” ― Mahatma
Gandhi
“Too bad that all the people who know how to
run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” ― George Burns
“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone
inferior to yourself.” ― Plato, The Republic
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