Sudha Murty > Quotes

“Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. Nor are there model answer papers.”
― Sudha Murthy, Wise & Otherwise

“Quantitatively speaking, 'conversation' is inversely proportional to economic standing. If you are traveling in a bus, your fellow passengers will get into a conversation with you very quickly and without any reservation. If you are traveling by first class on a train, people will be more reserved. If you are traveling by air, then the likely hood of getting into a conversation is quite small. If you are in first class on an international flight then you may travel 24 hours without exchanging a single word with the person sitting next to you.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise and Otherwise

“Struggle is lyf”
― sudha murthy

“If you try to please everyone, you will please no one. It is impossible to lead your life for others’ happiness.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise & Otherwise

“Vision without action is merely a dream; action without vision is merely passing time; but vision and action together can change the world.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise & Otherwise

“With my experience in life, I want to tell you that having good relationships, compassion and peace of mind is much more important than achievements, awards, degrees or money.”
― Sudha Murty, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There

“We can give our children only two things in life which are essential. Strong roots and powerful wings. Then they may fly anywhere and live independently. Of all the luxuries in life, the greatest luxury is getting freedom of the right kind.”
― Sudha Murty

“Usually, people who are sensitive need more time to understand the real world.”
― Sudha Murty, House of Cards: A Novel

“Experience has taught me that honesty is not the mark of any particular class nor is it related to education or wealth. It cannot be taught at any university. In most people, it springs naturally from the heart.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise & Otherwise

“Money should come slowly over a period of time. Then only does one respect it. Whether it’s a man or a woman, earning too much money in too short a period is as bad as excess liquor.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise & Otherwise

“Money is one thing which rarely unites and mostly divides people.”
― Sudha Murty, The Old Man And His God: Discovering the Spirit of India

“When a doctor makes a mistake, a person goes six feet below the ground. When a judge makes a mistake, a person is hung six feet above the ground. But when a teacher makes a mistake, the entire batch of students is destroyed. Don’t ever look down on teachers.”
― Sudha Murty, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There

“You should not be so sensitive. Sensitive people suffer a lot in life.”
― Sudha Murty, How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories

“Many a times there is no perfect solution for a given problem. No solution is also a solution. Everything depends upon how you look at it. We make judgements on others depending upon what we think of them.”
― Sudha Murty, How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories

“Suddenly Yudhisthira saw a yaksha approaching him. The being sat in front of him and began firing questions rapidly at him.


What is bigger than the Earth? the yaksha asked.

"A mother" replied Yudhisthira.

What is taller than the sky?

"A father"

What is faster than the wind?

"The mind , of course". Yudhisthira smiled.

What grows faster than hay?

"Worry"

What is the greatest dharma in the world? queried the yaksha

"Compassion and conscience"

With who is friendship never-ending?


"With good people" responded Yudhisthira patiently.

What is the secret to never feeling unhappy?

"If one can control his or her mind, then that person will never feel sad"

The yaksha increase his pace now.
What is the greatest kind of wealth.

"Education"

What is the greatest kind of profit?

"Health"

What is the greatest kind of happiness?

"Contentment" said Yudhisthira, ever prompt with his replies.

What is man's worst enemy?

"Anger"

What disease will never have a cure?

"Greed is incurable"

The yaksha smiled again. A last question my friend. What is life's biggest irony?

"It is the desire to live eternally. Every day, we encounter people dying but we always think that death will never come to us.”
― Sudha Murty, The Serpent's Revenge: Unusual Tales from the Mahabharata

“At twenty, if you are not an idealist, then you don't have a heart. And if you continue being an idealist at forty, then you don't have a brain.”
― Sudha Murty, House of Cards

“A Cuckoo should never dance and a Peacock should not try to sing! (Acknowledge all the troubles and failures in our lives.)”
― Sudha Murty, The Old Man And His God: Discovering the Spirit of India

“When someone gets cheated, that person gets upset not because they have lost money but because he or she realizes that they have been foolish enough to be tricked by someone.”
― Sudha Murty, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There

“Confidence doesn’t mean that everything will go our way. It simply gives us the ability to accept failures that we will inevitably meet on our path and move forward with hope.”
― Sudha Murty, Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

“I can give you many examples of people who may not have studied much but have done well for themselves because they believed they could.”
― Sudha Murty, Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

“it is not the institution, ultimately it is you and you alone who can change your life by hard work.’ Probably he was not aware that he was following the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Your best friend is yourself and your worst enemy is yourself.”
― Sudha Murty, How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories

“We should always have some aim in life which we must try to achieve while being of help to others.”
― Sudha Murty, Grandma's Bag of Stories

“There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness is boring, whereas in solitude you can inspect and examine your deeds and your thoughts.”
― Sudha Murty, How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories

“Men can do certain things well and women other things. Men and women are complementary to each other. One need not prove one’s strength.”
― Sudha Murty, How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories

“It is very difficult to earn trust. It takes years to build and it can be destroyed in an instant by one bad deed. Trust requires an enormous amount of integrity and you have to prove every time that you are worthy of it. I am very grateful to our society and community.”
― Sudha Murty, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There

“I realized then that only diseases and not honesty and integrity are passed down to the next generation through genes.”
― Sudha Murty, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There

“In an effort to teach myself self-restraint and self-control, I decided that until I completed my engineering degree, I would wear only white saris, refrain from sweets, sleep on a mat and take baths with cold water. I aimed to become self-sufficient; I would be my best friend and my worst enemy. I didn’t know then that such a quote already existed in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says, ‘Atma aiva hi atmano bandhu aatma aiva ripu atmanah’.”
― Sudha Murty, Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

“Who is the best friend to a man and a woman?” The answer is: “A wife to her husband and a husband to his wife.”
― Sudha Murty, House of Cards: A Novel

“She says the secret to her positivity lies in the simplest of things: gratitude for each and every simple pleasure of life.”
― Sudha Murty, Something Happened on the Way to Heaven: 20 Inspiring Real-Life Stories

“Of the thousands of flowers that blossom on a tree only a few will bear fruit. And out of those few fruits, insects and squirrels will eat some. The tree does not keep anything for itself. Does that mean that the life of the tree is wasted?”
― Sudha Murty, महाश्वेता