Devan Raj > Devan's Quotes

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. ”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“The point is this: that the stream of memory may lead you to the river of understanding. And understanding, in turn, may be a tributary to the river of forgiveness.”
― Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True

“But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves. Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive others.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”
― Julian Barnes , The Sense of an Ending

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic.”
― Julian Barnes, A Life with Books

“The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me
Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.”
― Robinson Jeffers

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Tough times don't last but tough people do”
― A.C Green

“Sometimes, when you are feeling your worst, an extra stab of pain doesn't hurt at all. Hopelessness is a great anesthetic.”
― Breznican Anthony

“Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti. Truth is one, though the sages know it as many.”
― Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas

“In the beginning of time, there was nothing except darkness and primordial flood. Then out of this darkness, desire was born. Desire was the primal seed, the germ of creation.”
― Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas

“Desire creates attachment. Attachment to this world. And, when you don't get what you want or get what you don't want, it leads to suffering. And that to violence and wars. Which finally results in destruction. So, if you want to avoid destruction and suffering, you should control your desire right? Give up maya, the illusion of this world?”
― Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas

“It is your karma to fight evil. It doesn't matter if the people that evil is being committed against don't fight back. It doesn't matter if the entire world chooses to look the other way. Always remember this. You don't live with the consequences of other people's karma. You live with the consequences of your own”
― Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas

“Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti. Truth is one, though the sages know it as many. God is one, though different religions approach Him differently. Call Him Shiva, Vishnu, Allah, Jesus or any other form of God that you believe in. Our paths may be different. Our destination is the same.”
― Amish Tripathi, Secret of the Nagas

“If you want to know the strength of a cloth, you inspect the quality of its weave. If you want to understand a person’s character, look closely at their interpersonal behaviour or their transactions.”
― Amish Tripathi, The Immortals of Meluha

“Standing by and doing nothing while a sin is committed is as bad as committing the sin itself”
― Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas

“Everything in the world is maya, an illusion. The ultimate truth one has to realise is that we actually need nothing. Because to possess an illusion is as good as possessing nothing.”
― Amish Tripathi, Secret of the Nagas

“A man becomes a Mahadev, only when he fights for good. A Mahadev is not born from his mother's womb. He is forged in the heat of battle, when he wages a war to destroy evil. Har Har Mahadev - All of us are Mahadev.”
― Amish Tripathi, The Immortals of Meluha

“The key question isn't 'What is Evil?' The key question is 'When does the Good become Evil?”
― Amish Tripathi, The Oath of the Vayuputras

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
― Albert Einstein

“You may control a mad elephant;
You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;
Ride the lion and play with the cobra;
By alchemy you may learn your livelihood;
You may wander through the universe incognito;
Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;
You may walk in water and live in fire;
But control of the mind is better and more difficult.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“you got to figure out which end of the needle you’re gon be, the one that’s fastened to the thread or the end that pierces the cloth.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“I have one mind for the master to see. I have another mind for what I know is me.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“It has come as a great revelation to me that abolitionist is different from the desire for racial equality. Color prejudice is at the bottom of everything. If it's not fixed, the plight of the Negro will continue long after abolition.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“Professor Julius Lester, which I kept propped on my desk: “History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“They say in extreme moments time will slow, returning to its unmoving core, and standing there, it seemed as if everything stopped. Within the stillness, I felt the old, irrepressible ache to know what my point in the world might be. I felt the longing more solemnly than anything I’d ever felt, even more than my old innate loneliness.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings