Monwar Hussain

“সৃজনের একটা বিপুল আনন্দ আছে। কিন্তু কোনো মানুষ তো সমস্ত সময় সৃজনে ব্যাপৃত থাকিতে পারে না - তাহার শক্তির সীমা আছে, এবং সংসারে লিপ্ত থাকিয়া তাহাকে জীবনযাত্রা নির্বাহ করিতেও হয়। এই জীবনযাত্রায় তাহার বড়ো অসুবিধা। মনটির উপর অবিশ্রাম কল্পনার তা দিয়া সে এমনি করিয়া তুলিয়াছে যে, তাহার গায়ে কিছুই সয় না। সাত-ফুটা-ওয়ালা বাঁশি বাদ্য যন্ত্রের হিসাবে ভালো, ফুৎকারমাত্রে বাজিয়া ওঠে; কিন্তু ছিদ্রহীন পাকা বাঁশের লাঠি সংসার পথের পক্ষে ভালো, তাহার উপর স্মপূর্ণ নির্ভর করা যায়।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, রবীন্দ্র রচনাবলী : প্রথম খন্ড

“America is in the earliest phase of its power. It is not fully civilized. America, like Europe in the sixteenth century, is still barbaric (a description, not a moral judgment). Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions. Cultures live in one of three states. The first state is barbarism. Barbarians believe that the customs of their village are the laws of nature and that anyone who doesn’t live the way they live is beneath contempt and requiring redemption or destruction. The third state is decadence. Decadents cynically believe that nothing is better than anything else. If they hold anyone in contempt, it is those who believe in anything. Nothing is worth fighting for. Civilization is the second and most rare state. Civilized people are able to balance two contradictory thoughts in their minds. They believe that there are truths and that their cultures approximate those truths. At the same time, they hold open in their mind the possibility that they are in error. The combination of belief and skepticism is inherently unstable. Cultures pass through barbarism to civilization and then to decadence, as skepticism undermines self-certainty Civilized people fight selectively but effectively.”
― George Friedman, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

“My dream—the solution—is that we would have a National Entrepreneur Day, with the following message: Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are at the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

“A new collection of matter and information to present to the universe and to which it in turn will be presented; different, arguably equal parts of that great ever-repetitive, ever-changing jurisdiction of being.”
― Iain M. Banks, Excession