30 Famous Quotations about India

 

American writer, historian and philosopher Will Durant.

 

·         Will Durant, American historian: "India was the motherland 

of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was 

the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of 

our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied 

in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government

and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".

·         Mark Twain, American author: "India is the cradle of the human 

race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother

 of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition, our most valuable and 

most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."

·         Albert Einstein, American scientist: "We owe a lot to the Indians, 

who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery 

could have been made."

·         Max Mueller, German scholar: If I were asked under what sky the

 human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most 

deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, 

I should point to India.

·         Romain Rolland, French scholar : "If there is one place on the face 

of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very 

earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India."

·         Henry David Thoreau, American Thinker & Author: Whenever I 

have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown 

light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of 

sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and nationalities and is the royal road 

for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I read it, I feel that I am

 under the spangled heavens of a summer night.

·         R.W. Emerson, American Author: In the great books of India, 

an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, 

the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered 

and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.

·         Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA: "India conquered and 

dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single 

soldier across her border."

·         Keith Bellows, National Geographic Society : "There are some parts 

of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won't go. For me, India is 

such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by 

its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with 

the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds... I had 

been seeing the world in black & white and, when brought face-to-face with India, 

experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."

·         A Rough Guide to India: "It is impossible not to be astonished by India. 

Nowhere on Earth does humanity present itself in such a dizzying, creative burst 

of cultures and religions, races and tongues. Enriched by successive waves of 

migration and marauders from distant lands, every one of them left an indelible

 imprint which was absorbed into the Indian way of life. Every aspect of the 

country presents itself on a massive, exaggerated scale, worthy in comparison 

only to the superlative mountains that overshadow it. It is this variety which 

provides a breathtaking ensemble for experiences that is uniquely Indian. 

Perhaps the only thing more difficult than to be indifferent to India would be 

to describe or understand India completely. There are perhaps very few nations

 in the world with the enormous variety that India has to offer. Modern day India

 represents the largest democracy in the world with a seamless picture of unity

in diversity unparalleled anywhere else."

A little girl with the Indian flag.

· ·         

Mark Twain: "So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, 

either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that

 the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing 

overlooked."

·         Will Durant, American Historian: "India will teach us the tolerance 

and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying 

love for all human beings."

·         William James, American Author: "From the Vedas we learn a practical

 art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is 

included. They are encyclopedia of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, 

ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology."

·         Max Muller, German Scholar: "There is no book in the world that is 

so thrilling, stirring and inspiring as the Upanishads." ('Sacred Books of the East')

·         Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian: "It is already becoming clear 

that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending

 if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely 

dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the

 Indian way."

·         Sir William Jones, British Orientalist: "The Sanskrit language, whatever

 be its antiquity is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more 

copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either."

·         P. Johnstone: "Gravitation was known to the Hindus (Indians) before 

the birth of Newton. The system of blood circulation was discovered by them 

centuries before Harvey was heard of."

·         Emmelin Plunret: "They were very advanced Hindu astronomers in 

6000 BC. Vedas contain an account of the dimension of Earth, Sun, Moon,

 Planets and Galaxies." ('Calendars and Constellations')

·         Sylvia Levi: "She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of

 the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the 

right to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and 

symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the 

icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her 

beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!"

·         Schopenhauer: "Vedas are the most rewarding and the most 

elevating book which can be possible in the world." (Works VI p.427)

Indian tricolor balloons fly against a blue firmament.

 

·         Mark Twain: "India has two million gods, and worships them all. 

In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire."

·         Colonel James Todd: "Where can we look for sages like those whose 

systems of philosophy were prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works

 Plato, Thales and Pythagorus were disciples? Where do I find astronomers 

whose knowledge of planetary systems yet excites wonder in Europe as well as 

the architects and sculptors whose works claim our admiration, and the 

musicians who could make the mind oscillate from joy to sorrow, from tears 

to smile with the change of modes and varied intonation?"

·         Lancelot Hogben: "There has been no more revolutionary contribution

 than the one which the Hindus (Indians) made when they invented ZERO." 

('Mathematics for the Millions')

·         Wheeler Wilcox: "India - The land of Vedas, the remarkable works 

contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science 

has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the 

seers who founded the Vedas."

·         W. Heisenberg, German Physicist: "After the conversations about 

Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed 

so crazy suddenly made much more sense."

·         Sir W. Hunter, British Surgeon: "The surgery of the ancient Indian 

physicians was bold and skilful. A special branch of surgery was dedicated to

 rhinoplasty or operations for improving deformed ears, noses and forming

 new ones, which European surgeons have now borrowed."

·         Sir John Woodroffe: "An examination of Indian Vedic doctrines shows 

that it is in tune with the most advanced scientific and philosophical thought of

 the West."

·         B.G. Rele: "Our present knowledge of the nervous system fits in so 

accurately with the internal description of the human body given in the Vedas 

(5000 years ago). Then the question arises whether the Vedas are really 

religious books or books on anatomy of the nervous system and medicine." 

('The Vedic Gods')

·         Adolf Seilachar & P.K. Bose, scientists: "One Billion-Year-Old fossil

 prove life began in India: AFP Washington reports in Science Magazine that 

German Scientist Adolf Seilachar and Indian Scientist P.K. Bose have unearthed 

fossil in Churhat a town in Madhya Pradesh, India which is 1.1 billion years old 

and has rolled back the evolutionary clock by more than 500 million years."

·         Will Durant, American Historian: "It is true that even across the

 Himalayan

 barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy 

and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system."

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