All Quotes

“By the air which I breathe, and by the water which I drink, I will not endure to be blamed on account of this discourse. As reported by Heraclides Ponticus ( c . 360 BC), and Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , "Pythagoras", Sect. 6, in the translation of C. D. Yonge”

“Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine , And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine. As reported by Heraclides, son of Sarapion, and Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , "Pythagoras", Sect. 7, in the translation of C. D. Yonge”

“Τὴν δ' ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴν διῃρῆσθαι τριχῆ, εἴς τε νοῦν καὶ φρένας καὶ θυμόν. νοῦν μὲν οὖν καὶ θυμὸν εἶναι καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις ζῴοις, φρένας δὲ μόνον ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ. The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence , reason , and passion . Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.”

“As reported by Alexander Polyhistor , and Diogenes Laërtius in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , "Pythagoras", Sect. 30, in the translation of C. D. Yonge”

“ἀλλήλοις θ᾽ ὁμιλεῖν, ὡς τοὺς μὲν φίλους ἐχθροὺς μὴ ποιῆσαι, τοὺς δ᾽ ἐχθροὺς φίλους ἐργάσασθαι. ἴδιόν τε μηδὲν ἡγεῖσθαι. We ought so to behave to one another as to avoid making enemies of our friends, and at the same time to make friends of our enemies.”

“As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , "Pythagoras", Sect. 23, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 320”

“ἐν ὀργῇ μήτε τι λέγειν μήτε πράσσειν In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.”

“As quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , "Pythagoras", Sect. 23”

“It was indeed a great day not only for the Sikhs but also for the whole of India when Guru Govinda , defying the age”

“To know my country one has to travel to that age, when she realized her soul and thus transcended her physical boundaries when she revealed her being in a radiant magnanimity which illumined the eastern horizon, making her recognized as their own by those in alien shores who were awakened into a surprise of life.”

“I cannot but bring to your mind those days when the whole of Eastern Asia, from Burma to Japan was united with India in the closest ties of friendship... Rabindranath Tagore, Essays, Nationalism in Japan, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2007 p.471, and quoted in A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp [1]”

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

“Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live. I took a few steps down that road and stopped; for when I cannot retain my faith in universal man standing over and above my country, when patriotic prejudices overshadow my God, I feel inwardly starved. 1908 letter to Aurobindo Mohan Bose, quoted in Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore , Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson”

“When the other person understands that I am not trying to enslave him, or not forcing him to do things against his will, he will surely understand I am doing what every human should do unto another. He will understand that with “ Bande Mataram ” we are worshipping a motherland whose children are the great and the small. Then, we will not insult or demean anyone through our attitudes, words and thoughts whether Muslim or lower caste, Bihari or Oriya, English educated or not”

“Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend.”

“The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings. Letter to Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India, renouncing his knighthood in protest of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre .”

“Nationalism in the West”

“I know how reluctant it makes us feel to give any credit for humanity to the western civilisation when we observe the brutalities into which this nationalism of theirs breaks out, instances of which are so numerous all the world over,”

“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science. Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952) for The Sea Around Us ; also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91”

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry. Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91”

“Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world. There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe”

“We have been troubled about the world, and had almost lost faith in man; it helps to think about the long history of the earth, and of how life came to be. And when we think in terms of millions of years, we are not so impatient that our own problems be solved tomorrow. Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 96”

“The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth”

“Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before”

“Help your child to wonder”

“Essay on the Biological Sciences”

“To many of us, this sudden silencing of the song of birds, this obliteration of the color and beauty and interest of bird life, is sufficient cause for sharp regret. To those who have never known such rewarding enjoyment of nature, there should yet remain a nagging and insistent question: If this "rain of death" has produced so disastrous an effect on birds, what of other lives, including our own? Washington Post, April 10, 1959”

“In our modern world nothing may be taken for granted”

“If you are playing bad you are going to lose here, on clay, on ice, or on the beach. Preparing to play at the 2006 US Open [1]”

“To be honest, I haven't felt at my best since this tournament began. I didn't feel good with the court or the balls. But those are excuses. You have to accept when you don't play well and somebody else does. After losing to James Blake at the US Open [2]”