Rajiv Chopra

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an unuprooted small corner of evil.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

“He found the Mahasabha’s policies, especially towards Muslims, abhorrent, saying that it came out ‘from time to time with the stupidest of proposals’. But he also noticed that ‘stupidity has a market, if it puts on some kind of a nationalist garb’.”
― Rahul Bhatia, The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy

“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. —The Stolen Journals”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

“A book with the delicious title of The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, composed by an unnamed Greek in about 80 CE, gave detailed navigational instructions to those planning to sail to what is now Gujarat, and thence to gain access to the Deccan, where one could buy and export such specialties as ginseng, aromatic oils, myrrh, ivory, agate, carnelian, cotton cloth, silk, Indian muslins, yarn, and long pepper.”
― Wendy Doniger, Beyond Dharma: Dissent in the Ancient Indian Sciences of Sex and Politics