Rahul Kumar > Rahul's Quotes

“जिस तरह सूखी लकड़ी जल्दी से जल उठती है, उसी तरह क्षुधा (भूख) से बावला मनुष्य ज़रा-ज़रा सी बात पर तिनक जाता है।”
― Munshi Premchand, बड़े घर की बेटी

“Beauty doesn't need ornaments. Softness can't bear the weight of ornaments.”
― Munshi Premchand

“What the world calls sorrow is really joy to the poet.”
― Premchand, Godan

“बच्चों के लिए बाप एक फालतू-सी चीज - एक विलास की वस्तु है, जैसे घोड़े के लिए चने या बाबुओं के लिए मोहनभोग। माँ रोटी-दाल है। मोहनभोग उम्र-भर न मिले तो किसका नुकसान है; मगर एक दिन रोटी-दाल के दर्शन न हों, तो फिर देखिए, क्या हाल होता है।”
― Premchand, Mansarovar - Part 1 (Hindi)

“मासिक वेतन तो पूर्णमासी का चाँद है, जो एक दिन दिखाई देता है और घटते-घटते लुप्त हो जाता है, ऊपरी”
― Munshi Premchand, मानसरोवर 1: प्रेमचंद की मशहूर कहानियाँ

“लिखते तो वह लोग हैं, जिनके अंदर कुछ दर्द है, अनुराग है, लगन है, विचार है। जिन्होंने धन और भोग-विलास को जीवन का लक्ष्य बना लिया, वह क्या लिखेंगे? क”
― Munshi Premchand, गोदान [Godan]

“स्त्री गालियाँ सह लेती है, मार भी सह लेती है, पर मैके की निंदा उससे नहीं सही जाती। आनन्दी”
― Munshi Premchand, Mansarovar 2 (मानसरोवर 2, Hindi): प्रेमचंद की मशहूर कहानियाँ

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“It's a strange grief… to die of nostalgia for something you will never live.”
― Alessandro Baricco, Silk

“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Amor cuerdo, no es amor.
(Sane love, is not love)”
― José Martí

“Day and night I always dream with open eyes.”
― Jose Marti

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller

“Geography is not just about the physical terrain, but also about the meaning that we attribute to it. Thus, the Saraswati flows, invisibly, at Allahabad.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

“We know about the remarkable tale of how a foreign prince was invited to rule over a kingdom in southern India because Nandi Varman II himself tells us the story in inscriptions and bas-relief panels on the walls of the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“(a preliminary study hints that Varanasi may be as old as the Harappan cities).24”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“Like India, China turned inward and slipped into centuries of decline. Technological superiority could not save China from the closing of the mind. For a while, it seemed that the Indian Ocean would revert to the Arabs but that was not to be.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

“Indian goods and merchants so dominated the trade that the Arabs spoke of Basra as ‘belonging to al-Hind’.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

“Mark Twain is said to have remarked, ‘History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“Thus, an Indian father’s determination to protect his beloved daughter led to the demise of the Portuguese in Oman. In”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“A particularly intriguing case is that of an eleven-year-old girl, Meera, who was kidnapped from India’s west coast and then sold to the Spanish in Manila. She was then taken to Mexico where she is remembered as Catarina de San Juan.”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“Ghalib’s poetry may be very good from a literary perspective but it is mostly a lament for a world that was collapsing around him. It contains no vision of the future. In”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

“the ancient Persians also talk of an original ‘Aryan’ homeland and even name the river Helmand in Afghanistan after the Saraswati (i.e. Harahvaiti).”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

“In reality, the network of large and small temples had a close relationship with merchant and artisan communities as well as the village/town councils; this is quite clear from an examination of various donations and contracts. Moreover, the reason that the temples accumulated so much wealth is that they acted as bankers”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“In contrast, Indian Hindus imposed on themselves caste rules that discouraged the crossing of the seas. Why did a people with such a strong maritime tradition impose these restrictions on themselves? Was it a loss of civilizational self-confidence? I have long looked for a satisfactory answer but have not yet found one. Nonetheless,”
― Sanjeev Sanyal, The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand

“Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.”
― Ayn Rand