Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. And that which must seek now to awake is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the occident's success and failure, but still the ancient immemorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma.

India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

It is very difficult to hang onto the relics of history.

Civilisations which get cut off from their traditions and values do not survive for long.

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay.

The example which Massachusetts and New England offer in the retention of longstanding custom should be given very careful consideration before ruthlessly permitting it to be sacrificed for mercenary considerations.

It is of the essence of traditions that they cover or conceal their humble foundations by erecting impressive edifices on them.

A deep meaning resides in old customs.

Any nation that forgets its past cannot have a future.

Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor laid the groundwork for us as Indian-Americans. How can we add our story to their groundwork is the question.

A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

I think our societies - to certain extent, of course, and to different degrees, but almost with no exception - have always been struggling to come to terms with archaic traditions.

Ledger art represents a spirit which has lasted through the hardships and turmoil. It is my goal and ambition that this style of pictograph art continues to pay tribute to the perseverance of my ancestors who adapted and created works of art during a period of life changing turmoil and injustice.

Niaqornat particularly seemed to offer a heightened version of a story being played out across the world about traditional communities' struggle for survival and their attempts to renegotiate their identity in the face of modern life.

I believe history and tradition is something solid and something we can rest on. I am not crazy about putting new spices in chocolate.

The world that birthed that story is long gone, all its people are dead, but it continues to touch the present and future because someone cared enough about that world to keep it. To put it in words. To remember it.

Culture is a slingshot moved by the force of its past

I be off the slave ships, building pyramids, writing my own hieroglyphs

Every people, in order to remain healthy and strong, has to have a grasp of its foundation story. Culture is a chrysalis - it is protective, it takes care of you. That's what cultures are for. You cannot rob a people of language, culture, mother, father, the value of their labor - all of that - without doing vast damage to those people.

When a scholar of the old culture vows no longer to have anything to do with men who believe in progress, he is right. For the old culture has its greatness and goodness behind it, and an historical education forces one to admit that it can never again be fresh.

Change does not change tradition, it strengthens it. Change is a challenge and anopportunity, not a threat.

I am not given to superstition, yet there are certain places in old Asian countries where human beings have been born and have lived and died for so many generations that the very earth is saturated with their flesh and the air seems crowded with their continuing presence.