QUOTE BOOK

for UPSC Mains answer writing

BrainyIAS CONTACT: 8459400000

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POINTS TO REMEMBER
 With the introduction of Essay Paper in the year 1992 in the UPSC Civil

Services Exam by the commission, it is now a known thing to every

aspirant that how important is essay paper in assessing one’s skills and

abilities as the marks scored by a candidate in essay paper is also

considered for the final round (interview) in UPSC Exam.

 It is a part of a UPSC civil services aspirant’s armour to learn quotations to

sprinkle in his/her answers, particularly in the essay, ethics and also the

general studies papers.

 Quoting effectively is important because the right quotation presented

properly can add spice, interest, thought, effectiveness, support, and

respect to your writing.

 Quoting ineffectively makes your writing look like an amateur attempt

padded by random comments from strangers.

 Here, then, is some advice that will help you incorporate quotations into

your writing in a way that will give both the sizzle you want.

 DON’TS

 Don’t pepper your answers unnecessarily with random quotes.

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 Relying too much on other people’s words show a paucity of ideas in the

writer.

 As a rule of thumb, refrain from using more than 2 quotes in any essay.

(One in the introductory paragraph and the other if necessary in the

conclusion).

 Don’t change the words of a quotation. If you don’t remember the exact

words, don’t write the quote. It would be factually wrong.

 Don’t give irrelevant quotes. Just because you think a quote is beautiful

and you know it doesn’t mean you have to use it. It should be applicable to

your answer and the topic.

 Avoid politically charged or controversial quotes by active politicians. It

could show bias, unless the statement is neutral and general.

 DO’S

 Relevant quotations, though not necessary, always improve the quality of

your Essay if used appropriately.

 It also tells the examiner that you have grasped the core idea of the Essay

topic.

 Some kind of information about the quotation is needed like the name the

author, give his or her credentials, name the source, etc.

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 Discuss them to show how they fit in with your thesis and with the ideas

you are presenting.

 It is often useful to apply some interpretive phrasing after a quotation, to

show the reader that you are explaining the quotation and that it supports

your argument.

 Generally, UPSC tends to like quotes by Gandhi, Nehru, Marx, Max Weber,

Emile Durkheim, etc.

 So Quotations for UPSC Essay are like ammunition that you need to keep

in your back-pocket but use only when it is appropriate

 Understanding the importance of Essay Paper in UPSC Civil Services IAS

Exam, here we bring a list of quotes quoted by famous personalities, which

candidates can go through and include relevant quotes in their essay topic

in the UPSC Mains Exam.

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Aristotle

 “All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is

established.”

 “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

 “No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness.”

 “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

 “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”

 “The whole is greater than sum of its parts.”

 “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a

habit.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

 “Compassion is the basis of morality.”

 “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the

world.”

 “One should use common words to say uncommon things.”

 “Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains

people as to how they shall think.”

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Jeremy Bentham

 “Rarest of all human quality is consistency.”

 “The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they

suffer?”

 “The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number

that is the measure of right and wrong.”

 “Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the

flowers at his feet.”

 “Every law is an infraction of liberty.”

 “The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals

and legislation.”

 “The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.”

 “Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not

punished.”

 “It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding

what the interest of the individual is.”

 “Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.”

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 “The age we live in is a busy age; in which knowledge is rapidly advancing

towards perfection.”

Bertrand Russell

 “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was

once eccentric.”

 “If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired

their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we

could have paradise in a few years.”

 “Longing for love, search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the

suffering of the mankind.”

 “Not to be absolutely certain, is one of the essential things in rationality.”

 “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in modern world the stupids

are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

 “The hardest thing in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”

 “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”

B R Ambedkar
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 “I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which

women have achieved.”

 “Life should be great rather than long.”

 “Prayer of the god lead to salvation in the temples but in politics it lead to

the dictatorship”

 “Rights are protected not by law but by the social and moral conscience of

the society."

 “If our Constitution fails, it is not because it is a bad Constitution; but

because our functionaries have failed it.”

 “India as a nation in real sense had to be created”

 "It is easy to give power, it is difficult to give wisdom"

Benjamin Franklin

 “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

 “Either write worth reading or do something worth writing.”

 “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

 “He that can have patience can have what he will.”

 “If everyone is thinking alike then no one is thinking.”

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 “Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.”

 “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”

 “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged

as those who are.”

 “Lost time is never found again.”

Charles Dickens

 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

 “Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a

touch that never hurts.”

 “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”

 “Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not

on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

 “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

Confucius

 “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

 “Consideration for others is the basis of a good life and good society.”
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 “Don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

 “Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him

how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”

 “Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.”

 “If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant

trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children.”

 “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

 “It’s a universal law — intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate

education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience,

whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”

 “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

 “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not

ask is a fool for life.”

Albert Einstein

 “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

 “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

 “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

 “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

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 “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in

school.”

 “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,

it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

 “Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

 “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.”

 “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre

minds.”

 “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”

 “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

 “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

 “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the

president of the university.”

 “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

 “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty

desk a sign?”

 “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World

War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

 “It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”
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 “If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for

reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”

 “If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science,

it would be Buddhism.”

 “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

 “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”

 “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

 “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important

thing is not to stop questioning.”

 “Never memorize something that you can look up.”

 “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”

 “Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.”

 “There are two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

 “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”

 “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

 “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the

crowd”

 “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”

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 “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be

changed without changing our thinking.”

 “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are

evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

 “What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always

right.”

 “We all know that light travels faster than sound. That’s why certain people

appear bright until you hear them speak.”

 “What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”

 “When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you

sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”

 “You never fail until you stop trying.”

Frankin Roosevelt

 “The only thing we have to fear is the fear itself.”

 “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of

those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have

little.”
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Gautam Buddha

 “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I

have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common

sense.”

 “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not

believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do

not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious

books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers

and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed

down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you

find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and

benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

 “Doubt everything. Find your own light.”

 “Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters

most.”

 “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good

will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”

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George Washington

 “99% of failures come from people who make excuses.”

 “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

 “Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”

 “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led,

like sheep to the slaughter.”

 “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”

 “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my

mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical

education I received from her.”

Henry David Thoreau

 “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be

slaves.”

 “Dreams are touchstones of our characters.”

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 “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently

in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has

imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

 “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”

 “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

 “Things do not change, we change.”

 “This world is but a canvas for our imagination.”

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

 “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number

of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo,

Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert

Einstein.”

Immanuel Kant

 “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or

in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always

at the same time as an end.”

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 “Dare to think!”

 “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

 “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

 “Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful

means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh

them.”

 “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the

understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than

reason.”

 “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere

intellectual play.”

 “It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.”

 “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves

happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”

 “Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”

 “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are

blind.”

 “Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.”
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 “In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is

guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”

John F. Kennedy

 “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your

country.

 “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have

endurance without death.”

 “A child miseducated is a child lost.”

 “A journey to thousand miles begins with one step.”

 “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth”

 “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”

 “Mankind must put an end to war – or war will put an end to mankind.”

 “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”

 “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush

stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of

the danger–but recognize the opportunity.”

 “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are

threatened.”
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 “To those whom much is given, much is expected.”

 “Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”

 “The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.”

 “Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can

succeed and no republic can survive.”

 “We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

Leo Tolstoy

 “A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose

denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the

smaller the fraction.”

 “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing

himself.”

 “To get rid of enemy one must love him.”

 “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

Mahatma Gandhi

 “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
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 “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

 “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then y

 “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full

victory.”

 “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable

will.”

 “The good man is the friend of all living things.”

 “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a

true democratic spirit.”

 “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are

treated.”

 “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means

getting along with people.”

 “There are people in the world, so hungry, that God cannot appear to them

except in the form of bread.”

 “Violent means will give violent freedom.”

 “There is higher courts than courts of justice and that is conscience.”

 “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonesty.”

 “Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always

aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

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 “A No uttered from deepest conviction is better than a YES merely uttered

to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”

 “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

 “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s

greed.”

 “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

 “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then

you win.”

 “God has no religion.”

 “Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in

harmony.”

 “In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.”

 “In a gentle way you can shake the world.”

 “My Life is My Message.”

 “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

 “Seven Deadly Sins. Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience;

Science without humanity; Knowledge without character; Politics without

principle; Commerce without morality; Worship without sacrifice.”

 “The future depends on what you do today.”

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 “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them

except in the form of bread.”

 “The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand

heads bowing in prayer.”

 “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human

being.”

 “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing

would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”

 “Your beliefs become your thoughts; your thoughts become your words;

your words become your actions; your actions become your habits; your

habits become your values; your values become your destiny.”

 “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few

drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

 “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but

you will never imprison my mind.”

 “A man is the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”

 “Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest most

helpless destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, Is What I am

about to do going to help him?”

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Martin Luther King

 “A right delayed is a right denied.”

 “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”

 “Darkness can’t drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot

drive out hate, only love can do that.”

 “Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

 “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you

win.”

 “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then

crawl, but whatever may do you have to keep moving forward.”

 “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

 “In matter of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”

 “It’s the action and not the fruit of the action which is important.”

 “It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves

honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.”

 “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a

Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare

wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven
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and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his

job well.”

 “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

 “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”

 “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is : “What are you doing for

others?”

 “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.”

 “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

 “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.”

 “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because

greatness is determined by service.”

 “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a

person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to

the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

 “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

 “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe,nor

politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is

right.”

 “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

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 “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided

missiles and misguided men.”

 “Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.”

 “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

 “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of

comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and

controversy.”

 “The time is always right to do the right thing.”

 “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

 “Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is temporary.”

 “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

 “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

Mark Twain

 “Classic – a book people praise but don’t learn.”

 “God created war so that Americans would learn Geography.”

 “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

 “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and

moral courage so rare.”

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 “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

 “I do not fear death, I had been dead for billions and billions of years

before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from

it.”

 “The best way to cheer up yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”

 “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot

read.”

Plato

 “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Socrates

 “By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get

a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

 “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with

what he would like to have.”

 “Know thyself.”
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 “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

 “There is only one good, knowledge and one evil ignorance.”

Tagore

 “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses

it.”

 “Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.”

 “Everything comes to us that belong to us if we create the capacity to

receive it.”

 “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”

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

 “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

Thomas A Edison

 “5% of the people think; 10% of people think they think and the other 85%

would rather die than think.”

 “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.”

 “Good fortune happens when opportunity meets preparation.”

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 “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

 “I never did a day’s work in my life, it was all fun.”

 Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to

success when they gave up.

 Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is

always to try just one more time.

 The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It

should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is

naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of

exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that

it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It

insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or

reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.

 “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”

Thomas Paine

 “Independence is my happiness; the world is my country; to do good my

religion.”
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 “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the

fatigues of supporting it.”

 “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”

 “Whatever is the right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes

my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”

Thomas Jefferson

 “Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of

the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be

done, if we are always doing.”

 “Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.”

 “I can’t live without books.”

 “I am a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I

have of it.”

 “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle stand

like a rock.”
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Mother Teresa

 “Peace begins with a smile.”

 “If you can not feed a hundred people than feed just one.”

 “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

 “If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.

 “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

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Democracy

 “Democracy is the road to socialism.” –Karl Marx

 “Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the

rulers.” – Aristotle

 “Democracy is a faith in the spiritual possibilities of not a privileged few

but of every human being.” – Dr. S Radhakrishnan

 “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,

and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H .L .Mencken

 “The rights of democracy are not reserved for a select group within society,

they are the rights of all the people.” – Olof Palme

 “Advertising is the very essence of democracy.” – Anton Chekhov

 “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with

the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

 “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so much dangerous to the

public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy” – Montesquieu

 “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” – Abraham Lincoln

 “There cannot be daily democracy without daily citizenship.” – Ralph

Nader
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 ” I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same

chance as the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi

 “Democracy is not law of the majority but protection of the minority.” –

Albert Camus

 “In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power, but

carries the ultimate responsibility.” – Norman Cousins

Sociology

 “Racism is not about how you look, it’s about how people assign meaning

to how you look.” – Robin Kelley

 “I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which

women have achieved.” – Ambedkar

 “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” – Karl Marx

 “Revolutions are the locomotives of history.” – Karl Marx

 “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” –

Karl Marx

 “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as a farce.” – Karl Marx

 “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without

innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill

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 “I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow

it.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli

Governance

 “Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defence. It’s

patriotism.” – Joe Biden

 “Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or

imposed from outside a country.” – Émile Jamil Lahoud

 “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the

support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw

 “There never is a good time for tough decisions. There will always be an

election or something else. You have to pick courage and do it. Governance

is about taking tough, even unpopular, decisions.”- Jairam Ramesh

 “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's

consent.”- Abraham Lincoln

 “If people are good because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,

then we are a sorry lot indeed.”- Albert Einstein

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 “It is time for the world, the hemisphere and the region to make sure that

relevant institutions of civil society and relevant laws are embedded in the

mechanisms of governance.”- Baldwin Spencer

 “There never is a good time for tough decisions. There will always be an

election or something else. You have to pick courage and do it. Governance

is about taking tough, even unpopular, decisions.”- Jairam Ramesh

 “Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of

the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”- Albert Einstein

Environment

 “We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.” – Margaret Mead

 “We don’t have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.” –

Dennis Weaver

 “Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to

protect man.” – Stewart Udall

Education
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 “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the

world.” – Nelson Mandela

 “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

 “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” – Margaret

Mead

 “I have never let my schooling interfere with my Education.” – Mark Twain

 “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learnt in

school.” – Einstein

 “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought

without accepting it.” – Aristotle

 “Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man.” – Swami

Vivekananda

 “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you

educate a generation.” ― Brigham Young

 “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your

temper or your self-confidence.” ― Robert Frost

 “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” ― Thomas Paine,

 “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not

stop.” ― Confucius
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Science and Religion

 “All thinking men are atheists.” – Ernst Hemingway

 “Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind.”– Issac Newton

 “The notion that Science and Spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive

does a disservice to both.” – Carl Sagan

 “Science without Religion is lame and Religion without Science is blind” –

Einstein

 “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without

evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens

Materialism/Conusmerism

 “A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is

not even worth conversing with.” – Confucius

 “To live fully, we must use things and love people, not love things and use

people.” – Powell John

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 “The world has enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s

greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

 “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there

would be peace.” – John Lennon

Peace/Justice

 “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know

peace.” – William Gladstone

 “Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin.” – Eisenhower

 “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday

you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” ― John Lennon

 “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot

drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

 “Peace begins with a smile.” - ― Mother Teresa

Poverty
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 “One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit

population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating

the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons.

The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a

never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent

of revolution and crime.” - Aristotle

 “There is a solitude in poverty, but a solitude which restores to each thing

its value.”- Albert Camus

 “There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class

have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor

people living under conditions as they are today.”- Friedrich Engels

 “Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that

war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a

great revolution. This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars

to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five

hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for

every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty

program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.”- Martin

Luther King Jr.

 “The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.”- Bernard Shaw
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 “If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich

person.”- Leo Tolstoy

 “As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot

possibly admire them.” - Oscar Wilde

 “We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time. I

believe putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a better

strategy than spending it on guns.” - Nobel Peace Prize-

winner Muhammad Yunus

 “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Women

 “Please don’t repeat such poetry which is pictured by the red spots of

kissing on the lips of beautiful women. Kunti, a rustic old woman is now

knocking door to door to search for a job. She is beaten by her own sons.” -

Manmohan Acharya

 “Women eat double than men. They have four times more wisdom than

men, they have six times more courage, and eight times more sensual urge

than men.” - Chanakya

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 “Women who want to work deserve to work. And whenever they are denied

that opportunity, it’s not fair to them – and we all lose out. In a competitive

21st century global economy, we cannot afford to leave talent on the

sidelines. When we leave people out or write them off, we not only

shortchange them and their dreams, we shortchange our country and our

own futures.” - Hillary Clinton

 “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If

by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than

man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably

man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-

sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater

courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our

being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to

the heart than woman?” - Mahatma Gandhi

 “You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still

make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's

an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work.” - Barack

Obama
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Emotional Intelligence

 “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

 “In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive, and empathy mark

those who emerge as outstanding.” -Daniel Goleman

 “Anyone can be angry--that is easy. But to be angry with the right person,

to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right

way--that is not easy.” -Aristotle

 “Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.” -Benjamin Franklin

 “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the

opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head--it is the

unique intersection of both.” -David Caruso

 “Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives

and we obey them without realizing it.” -Vincent van Gogh

 “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” -

Antonio Gramsci
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 “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” -Fyodor

Dostoyevsky

 “A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Napoleon Bonaparte

 “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” -Ernest

Hemingway

 “I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” -

Socrates

Growth

 “Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and

struggle.” - Napoleon Hill

 “The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and

all moral development.” - Confucius

 “If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really

living.” - Anatole France

 “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” - George

Eliot

 “All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act

without benefit of experience.” - Henry Miller

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Caste

 “A chair is not a caste.” - ― Victor Hugo

 “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your

mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You

may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the

business of the state.” - ― Muhammad Ali Jinnah

 “I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste.” -

Guru Nanak

 “There is no caste in blood.” - Edwin Arnold

 “Caste is a state of mind. It is a disease of mind. The teachings of the Hindu

religion are the root cause of this disease. We practice casteism and we

observe Untouchability because we are enjoined to do so by the Hindu

religion. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet. The taste of anything can be

changed. But poison cannot be changed into nectar.” - B. R. Ambedkar

 “Now I have no caste, no creed, I am no more what I am!” - Kabir

 “I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste

prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society.
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All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for

me; he can't be any worse.” - Mark Twain

 “Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.” - B. R.

Ambedkar

 “I too belong to an OBC caste but I have never used my community to get

power.” - Narendra Modi

 “Anyway, what is a country? When people say, "Tell me about India," I say,

"Which India? The land of poetry and mad rebellion? The one that

produces haunting music and exquisite textiles? The one that invented the

caste system and celebrates the genocide of Muslims and Sikhs and the

lynching of Dalits? The country of dollar billionaires? Or the one in which

800 million live on less than half-a-dollar a day? Which India?"- Arundhati

Roy

Media

 “There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the

press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though

we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any
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doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very,

very active press.” - John F. Kennedy

 “Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a

newspaper.” - George Orwell

 “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who

reads nothing, but newspapers.” - Thomas Jefferson

 “The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is

that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.” -

Samuel Butler

 “There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the

globe... the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.” -

Mark Twain

 “The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.” -

Thomas Jefferson

 “In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It

is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.” - Mark Twain

 “Journalists are like dogs, whenever anything moves they begin to

bark.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

 “If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our

life with his lies.” - Karl Kraus

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 “The incredibly sinister role of the press, the cinema, the radio, has

consisted in passing that original reality through a pair of flattening rollers

to substitute for it a superimposed pattern of ideas an images with no real

roots in the deep being of the subject of this experiment.” - Gabriel Marcel

Panchayati Raj

 “When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion can do what

violence can never do.” - Gandhi

 “India is poor because villages of India are poor. India will be rich if

villages are rich. Panchayats should be given greater powers, for we want

the villages to have a greater measure of swaraj(self-government) in their

own villages.” - J.L. Nehru

Children

 “If we have to bring real peace in the world, we must begin with children” -

Mahatma Gandhi

 “There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which

it treats its children". ― Mandela

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 “Child is the father of man”- William Wordsworth

 “Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the

future.” - John F. Kennedy

 “Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”

― George Bernard Shaw

 “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” ― Margaret

Mead

 “It's the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.” ― Frank

Warren

Corruption

 “He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is

sure to convict only one.” - Edmund Burke

 “In the developing world, corruption is public enemy number one.

Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in

their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health

care; or from a girl or a boy who deserves an education; or from

communities that need water, roads, and schools. Every dollar is critical if
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we are to reach our goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost

shared prosperity.” - Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President

 “None of the governments, as they now exist, is worthy of the philosophic

nature, and hence we see that nature warped and corrupted; just as a

foreign seed, when sown in an alien soil, generally loses its native quality,

and tends to be subdued and pass into the plant of the country, even so this

philosophic nature, so far from preserving its distinctive power, now

suffers a decline and takes on a different character.” - Plato,

 “The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of

society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.” - Theodore

Roosevelt

Development

 “India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but

rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed

one in an advanced state of decay.” ― Shashi Tharoor

 “Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just

transforming economies.” ― Joseph E. Stiglitz

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 “If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's

ethical formation, in man's inner growth then it is not progress at all, but a

threat for man and for the world.” - Pope Benedict XVI

 “Progress was often achieved by a "criticism from the past". - Paul

Feyerabend

 “No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.” - Nelson

Mandela

 “Global interdependence today means that economic disasters in

developing countries could create a backlash on developed countries.” -

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Honesty

 “He who says that there is no such thing as an honest man is himself

a knave.” - George Berkeley,

 “An honest man's the noblest work of God.” - Alexander Pope

 “No legacy is so rich as honesty.’ - William Shakespeare

 “Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten

thousand.” - William Shakespeare

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 “I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I

consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” -

George Washington

 “Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.” - Thomas Jefferson

 “Honesty is the best policy when there is money in it.” - Mark Twain

 “It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.” -

Winston Churchill

 “No such thing as a man willing to be honest --that would be like a blind

man willing to see.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

 “We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our

children that honesty is the best policy.” - George Bernard Shaw

Integrity

 “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without

integrity is dangerous and dreadful.” - Samuel Johnson

 “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” - Ralph

Waldo Emerson
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 “The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its

performance.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

 “In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.” -

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is

neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.

Amen”. - Martin Luther

 “Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity

than straight forward and simple integrity in another.” - Charles Caleb

Colton

 “Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is

right and stick to it.” - George Eliot

Truth

 “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” ― Mark Twain

 “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its

shoes.” ― Mark Twain

 The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” ― Oscar Wilde

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 “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and

love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a

time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--

always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

 “A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” ― Oscar Wilde

 “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick

themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” ― Winston S.

Churchill

 “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to

possibilities; Truth isn't.” ― Mark Twain

Compassion

 “For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain

weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain

intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

― Milan Kundera,

 “Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” ― Joseph Fort

Newton
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 “Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even

the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.” - Eric Hoffer

 “Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man

will not himself find peace.” - Albert Schweitzer

 “In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they

show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them

inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of

others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are

not disinterested, but they are gentle.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

 “The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong

principles of duty.” - Samuel Johnson

Empathy

 “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” ― Ernest

Hemingway

 “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the

wounded person.” ― Walt Whitman.

 “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and

understanding, shame can't survive.” ― Brené Brown

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Wisdom

 “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a

fool.” ― William Shakespeare

 “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ― Aristotle

 “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ― Socrates

 “In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are

absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin,

without even opening them.” ― Mark Twain

 “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” ― Oprah Winfrey

 “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is

noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience,

which is the bitterest.” ― Confucius

 “Angry people are not always wise.” ― Jane Austen

 “There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no

moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” ― Patrick Rothfuss

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 “Don't Gain the World & Lose Your Soul, Wisdom Is Better Than Silver or

Gold.” ― Bob Marley

Politics

 “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor

politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is

right.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

 “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing

it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ― Groucho Marx

 “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,

whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism

or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” ― Mahatma Gandhi

 “Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy

driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” ― George Burns

 “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone

inferior to yourself.” ― Plato, The Republic

QUOTES COLLECTION
by Suyash Chavan, AIR 56, UPSC 2017
Some of the Quotes that I had collected (from different sources). Arrange other
quotes in a similar manner, GS wise. Revise them in Edge hour, and write them in
your GS Answers and Essays.
GS 1
#TRUE PEACE/#JUSTICE
J&K, Naxalites, Riots
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice
- Martin Luther King
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - MLK
TOLERANCE/SECULARISM : God has no religion
DISCRIMINATION /RESERVATION
"A just society is a society where the ascending sense of reverence and the
descending sense of contempt is dissolved into creation of a compassionate society"
. . . . . . #RESERVATION/JUSTICE
- Dr. Ambedkar
#RAISING VOICE AGAINST INJUSTICE/ WRONG
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" Edmund
Burke
"The world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil, but because of
those who look on and do nothing" - Albert Einstein
INEQUALITY
I believe that virtually all the problems in the world come from inequality of one kind
or another. - Amartya Sen
Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further
enrichment of the opulent - Amartya Sen
#AWARENESS
Human ordeals thrive on ignorance. To understand a problem with clarity is already
half way towards solving it. - Amartya Sen
#PARTICIPATION

Women
All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women. That
country and that nation which do not respect women have never become great, nor
will ever be in future. - Swami Vivekanand
B. R. Ambedkar - I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress
which women have achieved.
"Educate one man, and you educate a person, but educate a woman and you
educate a whole civilization"- MG

CHILDREN:
“we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
While students are just 40% of our population, they are 100% of our future!
DISABILITY:
The inability to see potential in others is the greatest disability
Intolerance
Any classification according to a singular identity polarizes people in a particular way,
but if we take note of the fact that we have many different identities - related not
just to religion but also to language, occupation and business, politics, class and
poverty, and many others - we can see that the polarization of one can be resisted by
a fuller picture. So knowledge and understanding are extremely important to fight
against singular polarization. - Amartya Sen
GS2
#FREEDOM / #DEVELOPMENT
(You cannot compromise freedom for the sake of development...)
Freedom is not just the end state of development, but also one of its principle means
- Amartya sen
#FREEDOM / FREEDOM OF PRESS/ FREEDOM OF SPEECH
The success of a society is to be evaluated primarily by the freedoms that members
of the society enjoy. - Amartya Sen
INVESTMENT IN HEALTH AND EDUCATION :
**Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the
basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than
the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it. -
Amartya Sen
**Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the
further enrichment of the opulent - Amartya Sen
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and
unethical. - Amartya Sen
EDUCATION
Value based education :
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever
devil. - CS Lewis
Quality & Content of Education :
"We must go on fighting for basic education for all, but also emphasize the
importance of the content of education. We have to make sure that sectarian
schooling does not convert education into a prison, rather than being a passport to
the wide world. - Amartya Sen
Womens Education :
"Educate one man, and you educate a person, but educate a woman and you
educate a whole civilization"- MG
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
The right defense against false senHments is to inculcate just senHments.”” ― C.S.
Lewis
FLAWS IN DEVELOPMENT PROCESS:
Voltaire: “The best is the enemy of the good.”
Confucius: "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."
Shakespeare: “Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.”
" Let not Perfect/Best be the enemy of the Good!“
DEMOCRACY
"Democracy is a means to bring about a significant change in the living conditions of
the depressed without resorting to bloodshed " - Dr. AMBEDKAR
COMMUNALISM: Darkness can't drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. - GS2/ GS4 - MLK
Love} is the only force capable of tranforming an enemy to a friend.- MLK
IR - Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows - IR - MLK
Human Rights
The notion of human right builds on our shared humanity. These rights are not
derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but
are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being. They differ,
therefore, from constitutionally created rights guaranteed for specific people. -
Amartya Sen
PatriotismJohn f Kennedy has rightly said that “Ask not what your country can rightly
do for you, ask what you can do for your country”
Govt programmes
"Those who would benefit most from a service a least likely to obtain it"
IR

GS3
ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT/ INVESTMENT IN HEALTH AND
EDUCATION :
**Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the
basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than
the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it. -
Amartya Sen
**Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the
further enrichment of the opulent - Amartya Sen
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and
unethical. - Amartya Sen
Economic Reforms
#RISEOFINDIA
Victor Hugo had said – “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has
come”
Poverty
Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one's full
potential as a human being. - Amartya Sen
Poverty is the worst form of violence. - M Gandhi
Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic
development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the
richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it. -
Amartya Sen
SCIENCE:
All the sciences are for this one end, to bring happiness to humanity. - Swami
Vivekanand
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and
misguided men - MLK
ENVIRONMENT
“we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
Earth has sufficient for man's need but not for man's greed. - M Gandhi
ANIMALS : To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human
being -MG
"The Greatness of a nation is judged by the way it treats its animals“
DISASTER MANAGEMENT
An Ounce of prevention is worth a Pound of cure - Benjamin Franklin
GS 4
CAPITALISM /MATERIALISM
"The world has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed" /
"Economic crisis is temporary but moral crisis is permanent "
OUR ROLE
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice
to solve most of the 5 world's problems." - I am a responsible citizen of this country
and i am doing my job properly. Welfare work is the duty of the government. what
else am i supposed to you?

SELFLESS SERVICE/
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others' - MG
Swami Vivekananda said that only rituals will not connect an individual to divinity.
He said Jan Seva is Prabhu Seva: PM
It is a privilege to serve mankind, for this is the worship of God. - Swami Vivekanand
Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is
determined by service.- MLK
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give"
#LEADERSHIP / EKLA CHALO
GOMSIL-Good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single
soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites
and brutes. - Swami Vivekanand
COURAGE
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing
point. - C. S. Lewis
#WILLPOWER / willpower of the weak
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. -
M Gandhi
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission
can alter the course of history. - M Gandhi
#RAISING VOICE AGAINST INJUSTICE/ WRONG
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" Edmund
Burke
"The world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil, but because of
those who look on and do nothing" - Albert Einstein
#BUREAUCRAT
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to
please, or worse, to avoid trouble. - M Gandhi
Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character,
give him power.— Abraham Lincoln2013I count him braver who overcomes his
desires than him who overcomes his enemies.— Aristotle
#RELIGION
SWAMI VIVEKANAND held that the
"Same method of investigation which applies to other sciences should form the basis
on which religion is to justify itself'
POVERTY & RELIGION: MG
Poverty is the worst form of violence
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in
the form of bread – MG
The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads
bowing in prayer.- MG
#RELIGIOUS TEXTS
The secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and do good -
that is the whole of religion. - Swami Vivekanand
The intellectual criteria that gave the 19th century Religious reform movement in
india its ideological unity were Rationality-Universalism-Humanity
RRMR considered different religions as the national embodiments of a universal
theism"
#FORGIVENESS
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - M Gandhi
TRUE HAPPINESS :
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. -
Mahatma Gandhi
HUMANITY
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the
ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. - Mahatma Gandhi
The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane. - M Gandhi
GS4 CONSCIENCE: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither
safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is
right.” - MLK GS4
In matter of conscience, the law of majority has no place. - MLK GS4
Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest most helpless
destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, Is What I am about to do going to
help him? MG - GS4
Non cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.- GS4
SETTING AN EXAMPLE : Be the change that you wish to see in the world.- MG
SETTING AN EXAMPLE : My Life is My Message - MG

VENGEANCE /FORGIVENESS: An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
- MG
Seven Deadly Sins. Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Science
without humanity; Knowledge without character; Politics without principle;
Commerce without morality; Worship without sacrifice.” - MG
DETERMINATION: First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you,
and then you win
BELIEF to DESTINY
Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny. - M Gandhi
नम फिलनो वृ ानम गुिणनो जनाः ।
शु का मूख ् न नम कदाचन् ॥
namanti phalino vRukShA namanti guNino janAH |
shuShkakAShThThashcha mUrkhashch na namanti kadAchan ||
The branches of a tree laden with fruit bend downward just as the highly cultivated
persons bow down out of respect to others. The unwise (murkha), however, are like
the dry log that never bends.
LIFE OF PURPOSE & SIMPLICITY:
Gandhi was greatly influenced by Leo Tolstoy,through his book ‘The Kingdom of God
is Within You’ and his essay on ‘Christianity and Patriotism’.
Gender Equality
"A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where
everyone can be themselves"
— GLORIA STEINEM
"When God created man and woman, he was thinking, 'Who shall I give the power
to, to give birth to the next human being?' And God chose woman. And this is the big
evidence that women are powerful"
— MALALA YOUSAFZAI
"Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the
challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building
good governance"
— KOFI ANNAN
"Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and
boys. It is everyone's responsibility"
— BAN KI-MOON
"I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women
have achieved"
— B. R. AMBEDKAR
WOMEN
"Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world"
— HILLARY CLINTON
"You educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a
generation"
— BRIGHAM YOUNG
"To educate girls is to reduce poverty"
— KOFI ANNAN
"Empower a woman - Empower a community"
— KOFI ANNAN
"When women do better economies do better"
— CHRISTINA LAGARDE
"There is no chance of the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is
improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing"
— SWAMI VIVEKANAND
"We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back"
— MALALA YOUSAFZAI
"The measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls"
— MICHELLE OBAMA
HUMANITY
"We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we
all belong to one human race"
— KOFI ANNAN
POVERTY
"Poverty is like a punishment for a crime you didn’t commit."
— ELI KHAMAROV
HEALTH
"It is the health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
"What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we
are doing to ourselves and to one another"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"This is our world, a common world. Everybody should feel a common responsibility"
— BAN KI MOON
"Climate change is simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human
family"
— BAN KI MOON
"Sustainable development and climate change are two sides of the same coin"
— BAN KI MOON
"Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are- rich and
poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call global challenges, which require
global solidarity"
— BAN KI MOON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
"Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a
framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise
environmental stewardship and strengthen governance"
— BAN KI MOON
YOUTH
"Any society that does not succeed in tapping into the energy and creativity of its
youth will be left behind"
— KOFI ANNAN
"Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation.
Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace"
— KOFI ANNAN
INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT
"You cannot have peace without security, and you cannot have security without
inclusive development"
— KOFI ANNAN
EDUCATION
"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope"
— KOFI ANNAN
"One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world"
— MALALA YOUSAFZAI
"We want the education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased,
the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet"
— SWAMI VIVEKANAND
ETHICS
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in a
harmony"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"Be truthful, gentle and fearless"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"Heart is a very good fertilizer; anything we plant love, fear, hate, hope, revenge,
jealousy-surely grows and bears fruit. We have to decide what to harvest"
— SWAMI VIVEKANAND
"We must become the change we want to see"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"To believe in something, and not live it, is dishonest"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
SEVEN DANGERS TO HUMAN VIRTUE
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Business without ethics
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the
ocean area dirty, the ocean does not become dirty"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the
humiliation of their fellow beings"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"Peace is its own reward"
— MAHATMA GANDHI
"The mind is everything. What you think, you become"
— BUDDHA
"Be kind to all creatures; this is the true religion"
— BUDDHA
"Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and, above
all, love"
— SWAMI VIVEKANAND
"Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls"
— POPE FRANCIS
"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears"
— NELSON MANDELA
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give
him power"
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"Success is not about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make
in people’s lives"
— MICHELLE OBAMA
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"
— MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
"Greed has poisoned man’s souls"
— CHARLIE CHAPLIN
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all"
— ARISTOTLE
"The best test of a man is authority."
— ANONYMOUS
"We are unnecessarily wasting our precious resources in wars... if we must wage war,
we have to do it on unemployment, disease, poverty, and backwardness"
— ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE
"Good governance depends on ability to take responsibility by both administration as
well as people"
— NARENDRA MODI
"Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the
further enrichment of the opulent"
— AMARTYA SEN
"The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who
have much; It is whether we provide enough for those who have little"
— FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
CHILDREN
"Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as
they are the future of the Nation and the citizens of tomorrow"
— Pt. JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU
SCIENCE & TECH
"I fear the day when technology will suppress human interaction and the world will
have a generation of idiots"
— ALBERT EINSTEIN
"The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people."
— JON RONSON
"Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human
values, not identities"
— NARENDRA MODI
"It is dangerously destabilizing to have half the world on the cutting edge of
technology while the other half struggles on the bare edge of survival"
— BILL CLINTON
"The Internet is becoming the town square for the Global village of tomorrow"
— BILL GATES
AGRICULTURE
"If agriculture fails, everything else will fail"
— M S SWAMINATHAN
Essay Topic: Education

“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change

the world.” Nelson Mandela
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live
forever.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”

Margaret Mead
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my Education.”
Mark Twain
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has
learnt in school.” Einstein
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a
thought without accepting it.” Aristotle
“Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man.”
Swami Vivekananda
Essay Topic: Science and Religion

“All thinking men are atheists.” Ernst Hemingway

“Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind…” Issac Newton
“The notion that Science and Spirituality are somehow mutually
exclusive does a disservice to both.” Carl Sagan
“Science without Religion is lame and Religion without Science is
blind” Einstein
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed
without evidence.” Christopher Hitchens
Essay Topic: Democracy
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter.” Churchill
“The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so much
dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a
democracy” Montesquieu

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” Abraham Lincoln

“There cannot be daily democracy without daily citizenship.”
Ralph Nader
” I understand democracy as something that gives the weak
the same chance as the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Democracy is not law of the majority but protection of the
minority.” Albert Camus
“In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate
power, but carries the ultimate responsibility.” Norman
Cousins
Essay Topic: Materialism/Consumerism

“A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or

modest meals is not even worth conversing with.” Confucius
“To live fully, we must use things and love people, not love
things and use people.” Powell John

“The world has enough for everyone’s need but not enough
for everyone’s greed.” Mahatma Gandhi
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television
set, then there would be peace.” John Lennon
Essay Topic: Peace/Justice
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the
world will know peace.” William Gladstone
“Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin.”
Eisenhower
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” Mahatma Gandhi
Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service

of others.”
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what
you do are in harmony.”
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world
blind.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight
you, then you win”
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort
is full victory.”
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from
indomitable will.”
“The good man is the friend of all living things.”
“Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the
growth of a true democratic spirit.”
“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its
animals are treated.”
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it
means getting along with people.”
“There are people in the world, so hungry, that God cannot
appear to them except in the form of bread.”
“Violent means will give violent freedom.”
“There is higher courts than courts of justice and that is
conscience.”
“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonesty.”
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he
becomes.”
 Quotes on Ethics
1. The nature and purpose of ethics
Morality is a private and costly luxury.
Henry Adams

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Jane Addams

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

Leon Blum

Grub first, then ethics.

Bertolt Brecht

Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers.
Samuel Butler

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
William Hazlitt

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

Christopher Hitchens

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may
make ourselves worthy of happiness.
Immanuel Kant

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the
meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are
worthy human beings.
Steven Pinker
Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.
John Ruskin

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for
cooperation with oneself.
Bertrand Russell
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human
beings.
Albert Schweitzer

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

Albert Schweitzer

At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop
different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn’t mean that you can’t
think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of
places.
Peter Singer

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if
you’re talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then,
yes, it is a human product.
Peter Singer
2. Ethics and emotion
Compassion is the basis of morality.
Arthur Schopenhauer

A system of morality that is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a

thoroughly vulgar conception that has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
Socrates

3. Ethics and faith

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville
4. Ethics and intuition
I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the
given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that
something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.
Peter Singer

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

Lincoln Steffens
5. Ethics and language
Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating
order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and remembering.
Jane Rule
6. Ethics and reason
The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.
David Hume
7. Ethics and the arts
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral.
Knowledge is the novel’s only morality.
Milan Kundera

The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic.
A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.
D. H. Lawrence
8. Ethics and the human sciences
History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always
with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested
themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.
B. R. Ambedkar

We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom,

morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote
democracy.
Joe Baca

Consciousness permits us to develop the instruments of culture – morality and

justice, religion, art, economics and politics, science and technology. Those
instruments allow us some measure of freedom in the confrontation with nature.
Antonio Damasio

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It’s really
no more inflammatory than that.
Sam Harris

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

Thomas Jefferson

The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer

toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.
Steven Pinker

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
9. Ethics and the natural sciences
My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with
ethics.
Arthur Keith

Science by itself has no moral dimension. But it does seek to establish truth. And
upon this truth morality can be built.
William Masters
10. Ethics and religious knowledge systems
A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics.
No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be a necessary good
for the well-being of the people.
B. R. Ambedkar

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by
religion.
Arthur C. Clarke

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an

exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
Albert Einstein

Religion without morality is a superstition and a curse, and morality without religion
is impossible.
Mark Hopkins

Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that
is religion!
Thomas Huxley

I’m very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness,
a deep-set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity
that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.
E. O. Wilson