Govind Dwivedi > Govind's Quotes

“Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?

Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Let's go." "We can't." "Why not?" "We're waiting for Godot.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Poems On Time

The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.

Time is a wealth of change,
but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time
like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“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

“That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“दो न्याय अगर तो आधा दो,

पर, इसमें भी यदि बाधा हो,
तो दे दो केवल पाँच ग्राम,

रक्खो अपनी धरती तमाम।
हम वहीं खुशी से खायेंगे,

परिजन पर असि न उठायेंगे!


दुर्योधन वह भी दे ना सका,

आशिष समाज की ले न सका,
उलटे, हरि को बाँधने चला,

जो था असाध्य, साधने चला।
जन नाश मनुज पर छाता है,

पहले विवेक मर जाता है।


हरि ने भीषण हुंकार किया,

अपना स्वरूप-विस्तार किया,
डगमग-डगमग दिग्गज डोले,

भगवान् कुपित होकर बोले-
'जंजीर बढ़ा कर साध मुझे,

हाँ, हाँ दुर्योधन! बाँध मुझे।


यह देख, गगन मुझमें लय है,

यह देख, पवन मुझमें लय है,
मुझमें विलीन झंकार सकल,

मुझमें लय है संसार सकल।
अमरत्व फूलता है मुझमें,

संहार झूलता है मुझमें।”
― Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, रश्मिरथी

“प्रासादों के कनकाभ शिखर,
होते कबूतरों के ही घर,
महलों में गरुड़ ना होता है,
कंचन पर कभी न सोता है.
रहता वह कहीं पहाड़ों में,
शैलों की फटी दरारों में.

होकर सुख-समृद्धि के अधीन,
मानव होता निज तप क्षीण,
सत्ता किरीट मणिमय आसन,
करते मनुष्य का तेज हरण.
नर वैभव हेतु लालचाता है,
पर वही मनुज को खाता है.

चाँदनी पुष्प-छाया मे पल,
नर भले बने सुमधुर कोमल,
पर अमृत क्लेश का पिए बिना,
आताप अंधड़ में जिए बिना,
वह पुरुष नही कहला सकता,
विघ्नों को नही हिला सकता.

उड़ते जो झंझावतों में,
पीते जो वारि प्रपातो में,
सारा आकाश अयन जिनका,
विषधर भुजंग भोजन जिनका,
वे ही फानिबंध छुड़ाते हैं,
धरती का हृदय जुड़ाते हैं.”
― Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, रश्मिरथी

“यह देख, गगन मुझमें लय है,

यह देख, पवन मुझमें लय है,

मुझमें विलीन झंकार सकल,

मुझमें लय है संसार सकल।

अमरत्व फूलता है मुझमें,

संहार झूलता है मुझमें।


'उदयाचल मेरा दीप्त भाल,

भूमंडल वक्षस्थल विशाल,

भुज परिधि-बन्ध को घेरे हैं,

मैनाक-मेरु पग मेरे हैं।

दिपते जो ग्रह नक्षत्र निकर,

सब हैं मेरे मुख के अन्दर।


'दृग हों तो दृश्य अकाण्ड देख,

मुझमें सारा ब्रह्माण्ड देख,

चर-अचर जीव, जग, क्षर-अक्षर,

नश्वर मनुष्य सुरजाति अमर।

शत कोटि सूर्य, शत कोटि चन्द्र,

शत कोटि सरित, सर, सिन्धु मन्द्र।


'शत कोटि विष्णु, ब्रह्मा, महेश,

शत कोटि जिष्णु जलपति, धनेश,

शत कोटि रुद्र, शत कोटि काल,

शत कोटि दण्डधर लोकपाल।

जञ्जीर बढ़ाकर साध इन्हें,

हाँ-हाँ दुर्योधन! बाँध इन्हें।


'भूलोक, अतल, पाताल देख,

गत और अनागत काल देख,

यह देख जगत का आदि-सृजन,

यह देख, महाभारत का रण,

मृतकों से पटी हुई भू है,

पहचान, कहाँ इसमें तू है।”
― Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', रश्मिरथी

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: the fights are bare knuckle. No shirt, no shoes, no weapons. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers and not words. No explanations seemed necessary. They were not friends, Comrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Mathew, and they didn’t trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly adult. They looked out at the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the machine.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“If you're happy in a dream, does that count?”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“VLADIMIR: What do they say?
ESTRAGON: They talk about their lives.
VLADIMIR: To have lived is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: They have to talk about it.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Talk to someone about themselves and they'll listen for hours.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“आत्मविश्वास धन का होता है, विद्या का भी और बल का भी, पर सबसे बड़ा आत्मविश्वास नासमझी का होता है ।”
― Harishankar Parsai, निठल्ले की डायरी

“Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”
― H. P. Lovecraft

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Vladimir: Did I ever leave you?
Estragon: You let me go.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot