Favorite Quotes

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“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.”
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“Why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world–to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
—Ayn Rand

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
—Oscar Wilde

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
—Marianne Williamson

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded.”
—Bessie Anderson Stanley (frequently misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
—Margaret Mead

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift,
And rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein


"How can you preserve your love? How can you make it last as long as possible? By not throwing yourself on the person you are falling in love with and devouring them. Because when all the excitement has passed, weariness will soon set in, and you will lose your inspiration and your joy, like someone who has eaten too much and has no more interest in food. But humans always seem to be in a hurry to destroy anything that can bring more beauty and meaning to their lives. They will sacrifice a love that brings them every blessing, that brings them heaven, for the sake of a few minutes’ pleasure. Why do they not try putting off the physical expression of their love, so that they can make the feeling of wonder they are experiencing last as long as possible? But no, they feel an attraction, and they have to quickly put an end to it.
But what happens then? Even when they marry and have children, they carry on living together out of habit, to respect convention, to make a good impression on their friends and relatives, but inside they have already left each other a long time ago. It is the subtler sensations that sustain love, that prolong life and make it beautiful. That is where the true elixir of eternal life is to be found." 

- Omraan Mikhail Aivanhow

The less you are, and the less you express your life, the more you have and greater is your alienated life. every thing an economist takes from you in a way of life, and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth.
- Karl Marx

A kite requires a person holding on to the string. So do ships which often require anchors while the next journey is planned! And so too souls, bodies - in all their glory!
- Shamit Bagchi


A person who is oriented towards being is centered and grounded in Love, reason and productive activity. These are one's own psychic forces that arise and grow only to the extent that they are practiced; they cannot be consumed, bought, or possessed like objects of having, but can only be practiced, exercised, ventured upon, performed. In contradistinction to objects of having - which are expended when they are used up - love, reason, and productive activity grow and increase when they are shared and used.
Orientation towards being always means that one's purpose in life is oriented toward one's own psychic forces. One recognizes, becomes acquainted with, and assimilates the fact that the unknown and the strange in oneself, and in external world, are characteristics of one's own self. By learning this, one attains a greater and more comprehensive relationship with one's self and one's environment.
- Erich Fromm

"Love" is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you.
- Dr. Wayne Dyer.

There are friends and then there are angels... I feel every human I have ever met or interacted with (online or offline) for a considerable time is an angel in diguise and all others are friends, potential angels! - SHAMIT BAGCHI

Good items come from intuition, hunches, conversations with friends, other research, reading, head scratching, day-dreaming, and group or individual narrative interviews.
SHAMIT BAGCHI

The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.
-Deepak Chopra

Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue..as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself
- Viktor Frankl

Strange as it may seem, life becomes serene and enjoyable precisely when selfish pleasure and personal success are no longer the guiding goals. When self loses itself in a transcendent purpose, it becomes largely invulnerable to the fears and setbacks of ordinary existence. Psychic energy becomes focused on goals that are meaningful, that advance order and complexity, that will continue to have an effect in the consciousness of new generations long after our departure from this world, even after we are long forgotten.
- Csikszentmihalyi Mihaly

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Society needs to return to spiritual values, not to offset the material but to make it fully productive. Mankind needs to return to spiritual values, for it needs compassion. It needs the deep experience that the "Thou" and the "I" are one, which all higher religions share".
-Peter F. Drucker

Humans are fundamentally good!
- Sandor Teszler


"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another...Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others; but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice"
- Adam Smith
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
-George Horace Lorime

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave - Paulo Coelho

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You'll have your heart broken and you'll break others' hearts. You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you'll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you've never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. you just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone's hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don't be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.
- Anurag Maherchandani

Do what you love or you will be forced to love what you do
- Anurag Maherchandani

Love is the only way to grasp another humanb being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and deatures in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.
- Viktor Frankl
Man's Search for Meaning

Just what is needed is to Give, Love, Care, Experience and Express!
And Life's all riches are yours....
- SAMRAT KAR

There is a desirability of an “uncluttered mind” – a perspective that is not distracted by the transitory events of the day. The uncluttered mind must constantly remove those obstacles that block vision and scan to identify those issues and trends that are truly important.
-John Gardner.

There are two kinds of truth, deep truth and shallow truth, and the function of Science is to eliminate the deep truth.
- Neils Bohr.


Anyone who love in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time. Love for the sake of love itself
- Paulo Coelho

I create; therefore I am.
-John Seely Brown

When we speak of a calm state of mind or peace of mind, we shouldn't confuse that with an insensitive state of apathy. Having a calm or peaceful state of mind doesn't mean being spaced out or completely empty. Peace of mind or a calm state of mind is rooted in affection and compassion and is sensitive and responsive to others.
- The Dalai Lama

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are to some extent a gift. Good Character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece...by thought, choice, courage, and determination.
- John Luther

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
-Unknown

If we are looking for a purpose broader than our interests, soemthing that will allow us to see our lives as possessing significance beyond the narrow confines of our own conscious states, one obvious solution is to take up the ethical point of view. The ethical point of view does require us to go beyond a personal point of view to the standpoint of an impartial spectator. Thus looking at things ethically is a way of transcending our inward looking concerns and identifying ourselves with the most o bjective point of view possible - with, as Sidgwick puts it, "The Point of view of the universe"
- Peter Singer

You will never be as young as you are now. Play, love, care, give, create, teach, kiss, hug, read, sing, dance, jump, laugh, smile, travel, pray, forgive, listen, help, write, express....hurry up...time is passing by...just 100 years at max you will be alive!
- Samrat Kar

Warriors of light keep the spark in their eyes.
They are in the world, are part of other people’s lives, and began their journey without a rucksack and sandals. They are often cowards. They don’t always act right.
Warriors of light suffer over useless things, have some petty attitudes, and at times feel they are incapable of growing. They frequently believe they are unworthy of any blessing or miracle.
Warriors of light are not always sure what they are doing here. Often they stay up all night thinking that their lives have no meaning.
Every warrior of light has felt the fear of joining in battle. Every warrior of light has once lost faith in the future.
Every warrior of light has once trodden a path that was not his/her. Every warrior of light has once felt that he/she was not a warrior of light. Every warrior of light has once failed in his/her spiritual obligations.
That is what makes them warriors of light; because they have has been through all this and have not lost the hope of becoming better.
That is why they are warriors of light.
Because they make mistakes.
Because they wonder.
Because they look for a reason – and they will certainly find one.
- Paulo Coelho

The deepest confusions, unresolved conflicts and anxieties of life when they overwhelm us they automatically catapult us closest to the divine or the perceived divine! Better to do it consciously than unconsciously!!
- Shamit Bagchi.

Who I am is what I "do". Who I am is what I "create". Who I am is what I "contribute". Who I am is what I "read". Who I am is what I "write". Who I am is what I "speak". Who I am is what I "dream". Who I am is what I "feel". Who I am is what I "synthesize". Hence I am a verb.
- Samrat Kar

A worthwhile dream, brings with it, its own share of responsibilities....which keeps you awake the whole night...busy creating a new world..a world that you are proud of..and the one you are contributing to create
- Samrat Kar

Love is not finding the right person,
But creating the right relationship.
It is not how much love we have in the beginning,
But how much love we build until we die -
Brick by brick, creating lovely memories!
- Samrat Kar

Love is Grace - an Attitude - a Stance - a Poise - a way of Life - Beyond Life itself!
- Samrat Kar

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao Tzu

All thought draws life from contacts and exchanges.
- Fernand Braudel.

Leading effectively means expanding your awareness in order to meet the needs of others.There is nothing great or morally good about it.It is just more feasible doing that way.Given the limited attention we have,it certainly makes sense to steer the attention away from self,and direct it to others' needs so that no part of our attention gets wasted in nurturing our own ego.
- Samrat Kar

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way
- Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom
- Viktor Frankl

What is to give light must endure burning.
- Viktor Frankl

"In the end, the aggressors always destroyed themselves,
Making way for others who knew how to co-operate and get along.
Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival,
Than it is a triumph of co-operation and creativity"
-- Fritjof Capra

Happiness is directly proportional to the quality of relationships a person shares. Relationships with fellow humans, flora and fauna and institutions alike
- Samrat Kar

By discounting the whole notion of spiritual awakening, atheists make a claim to false knowledge. They haven’t walked the walk, yet somehow they know, with dead certainty, that Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster, Saint Paul, Rumi, Kabir, the Prophet Muhammad, Rabindranath Tagore, and countless others aren’t just wrong; they are stupid and blinkered compared to any everyday atheist today. I have my doubts. The atheists I’ve met went through a period of personal disillusion with religion, and on that basis alone they became atheists. Could anything be more subjective for a crowd that decries subjectivity? Could anything be more idiosyncratic for a group that claims to represent universal reason?
- Deepak Chopra

Although illusory, Love brings to ones consciousness a profound ineffability and specialness for the subject being loved.
- Samrat Kar

I Dream. I Write. I Pray. I Read. I see Light.
Transiently I live in this world and be with people - play, speak, share, listen, love, hate, get hurt, sometimes liked and loved -
And then I get back to the reality -
My Dreams, my Poems, my Prayers, my Books, my Light!
- Samrat Kar.

It becomes so very easy, when life becomes a solo journey solely in the pursuit of learning - in all its forms - what life has to offer - in terms of books, life situations, people, institutions, relationships, etc, etc...
- Samrat Kar

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else..
- Leonardo Da Vinci

If you're really listening...If you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world. Your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; Its purpose is to burst open again and again so it can hold ever more wonder! --Andrew Harvey

Life is nothing but a journey - a constant change, a constant transit, a constant inconstancy, a constant creation, a symphony being played - continuous modulations of tones - That makes life so beautiful - A continuous dance - till the music stops, and death embraces us in her peaceful presence.
- Samrat Kar

It is not that important what you do, but that you are doing something meaningful; something that makes a difference - a positive difference!
- Samrat Kar

Stay mad, but behave like normal people. Run the risk of being different, but learn to do so without attracting attention.
- Paulo Coelho [Aleph]

For me happiness is about being engaged in something meaningful, something creative, something difficult, something enjoyable, something relevant, something worthwhile, something inspiring, something which allows me to use and grow my innate talents, something that reflects what I stand for, and who am I.
- Samrat Kar

Live becomes worth living only when one is constantly surrounded by creative, lofty, happy and inspirational ideas, people, events, and actions.
- Samrat Kar

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I have ever encountered to help me make big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride,all fear of embarrassment of failure - these things just fall away in the face of death,leaving what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the traps of thinking you have something to lose. You already are naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
- Steve jobs

Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning. Dream is also just a word until you decide to fight for it with all your enthusiasm and commitment.
- Paulo Coelho

I also find it odd how people so often slip words like “merely” and “nothing but” into statements about our origins. Humans are apes. So too we are mammals. We are vertebrates. We are pulpy, throbbing colonies of tens of trillions of cells. We are all of these things, but we are not “merely” these things. And we are, in addition to all these things, something unique, something unprecedented, something transcendent. We are something truly new under the sun, with uncharted and perhaps limitless potential. We are the first and only species whose fate has rested in its own hands, and not just in the hands of chemistry and instinct. On the great Darwinian stage we
call Earth, I would argue there has not been an upheaval as big as us since the origin of life itself. When I think about what we are and what we may yet achieve, I can’t see any place for snide little “merelies.”
Dr. V. S. Ramachandran

“When you want to build a ship, then do not drum the men together in order to procure wood, to give instructions or to distribute the work but teach them the longing for the wide endless sea.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I also find it odd how people so often slip words like “merely” and “nothing but” into statements about our origins. Humans are apes. So too we are mammals. We are vertebrates. We are pulpy, throbbing colonies of tens of trillions of cells. We are all of these things, but we are not “merely” these things. And we are, in addition to all these things, something unique, something unprecedented, something transcendent. We are something truly new under the sun, with uncharted and perhaps limitless potential. We are the first and only species whose fate has rested in its own hands, and not just in the hands of chemistry and instinct. On the great Darwinian stage we
call Earth, I would argue there has not been an upheaval as big as us since the origin of life itself. When I think about what we are and what we may yet achieve, I can’t see any place for snide little “merelies.”
- Dr. V. S. Ramachandran

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is a society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more...
- Lord Byron

Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness .... give me the truth
- Into the Wild

Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find barriers within yourself that you have built against Love
- Rumi

Love is not primarily "caused" by a specific object, but a lingering quality in a person which is only actualized by a certain "object". Hatred is a passionate wish for destruction; love is a passionate affirmation of an "object"; it is not an "affect" but an active striving and inner relatedness, the aim of which is the happiness, growth and freedom of its object....Exclusive love is a contradiction in itself. The kind of love which can only be experienced with regards to just one person demonstrates not love but a sado-masochistic attachment.
- Erich Fromm in his book "The Fear of Freedom"

The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience,but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects. I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind...
- from the book "into the wild"

When I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish,they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to.
- from Thoreau's Walden, in the chapter titled "higher laws"

...so many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security,conformity and conservatism,all of which may appear to give one peace of mind,but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences,and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endless changing horizon,for each day to have a new different sun....you are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships.God has placed it all around us.It is in everything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living (reaching out to nature and its grandeur)...deliberate living - conscious attention to your immediate environment and its concerns,example a job,a task,a book;anything requiring efficient concentration. Circumstance has no value.it is how one relates to a situation that has value.all true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you.
The great holiness of food, the vital heat.
Positivism,the insurpassable Joy of the Life Aesthetic.
Absolute truth and honesty. Reality.Independence. Finality. Consistency.
- taken from the book - into the wild.

While a realist is not incapacitated in his social functioning, his view of reality is so distorted because of its lack of depth and perspective that he is apt to err when more than manipulation of immediately given data and short range aims are involved. "Realism" seems to be the very opposite of insanity and yet it is only its complement.
- Erich Fromm in the book - "man for himself"

"Only as we go out in love which seeks to help and serve, do we transcend ourselves and develop that consciousness which embodies the awareness of our essential unity with others."
-N.Ram

Resolve to be in love every moment of the day, no matter what. The crux of every philosophy is jut one - be in love, active love, Manas Love, Love emanating from Nous, from Buddhi. At the same time, beware of the disintegrated form of love coming out from the physical levels of Kama Manas and below (Linga, Prana, Stula). They are disintegrated form of that once pristine love of the Nous, of Buddhi. They have lost their erstwhile wings. They will just flutter and then die in a moment. They are transient. What is the truth is just that one love - The love emanating from the Nous - The Manas Love. Be grounded in that every moment of your attention.
Glimpses of The Manas Love - Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohammad.
- Samrat Kar.

"Love should be a reality in your life, not just a poem, not just a dream. It has to be actualized. It is never too late to experience love for the first time.

Learn to love. Very few people know how to love. They all know that love is needed, they all know that without love life is meaningless, but they don't know how to love." -- Osho

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