Manish > Manish's Quotes

“Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again and the joy first derived from it will still be there.”
― Ruskin Bond

“All glory comes from daring to begin.”
― Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer's Life

“It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.”
― Ruskin Bond, Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

“Happiness is an elusive state of mind not to be gained by clumsy pursuit.It is given to those who do not sue for it:to be unconcerned about a desired good is probably the only way to possess it.”
― Ruskin Bond, Lamp is Lit, Leaves From a Journal

“Yesterday, I was sad, tomorrow i may be sad again, but today i know that i am happy. I want to live on and on, delighting like a pagan in all that is physical; and i know that this one lifetime, however long, cannot satisfy my heart.”
― Ruskin Bond, Delhi Is Not Far

“On books and friends I spend my money;
For stones and bricks I haven't any.”
― Ruskin Bond, Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

“How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time…We move on, make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the Day I loved you.”
― Ruskin Bond - Delhi is not far

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble”
― Rudyard Kipling

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Works

“We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Works

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The world is very lovely, and it's very horrible--and it doesn't care about your life or mine or anything else.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the Shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,
And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers.”
― Ed Sullivan

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“But the trees seemed to know me. They whispered among themselves and beckoned me nearer. And looking around, I noticed the other small trees and wild plants and grasses had sprung up under the protection of the trees we had placed there.

The trees had multiplied! They were moving. In one small corner of the world, Grandfather's dream was coming true and the trees were moving again.”
― Ruskin Bond, Rusty: The Boy from the Hill

“But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.”
― Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

“I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.”
― Vikram Seth, From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet

“The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.”
― Satyajit Ray

“Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.”
― Satyajit Ray, The Bandits of Bombay

“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”
― Gore Vidal, Julian

“and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.”
― Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer's Life