Shashi Tharoor Quotes

Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

The prosperity of a people depends upon such facts as the natural wealth of the country in which they live, their social discipline and industrial character, the result of generations, of centuries, it may be, of tradition.

We have worked nearly 30 years, but the lives of the Tibetans have not improved.

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.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

National cultures and heritages must compete for man's attention with the mind-absorbing advances of universal science.

Except for a few oil-rich countries, no developing country has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

Cultural goods … are the source of the Nation's identity, continuity and development.

Without culture, development falls apart.

The social goals are the most difficult to achieve in the development of any country.

A deep meaning resides in old customs.

The relationship of a people to their homeland is crucial. A people will naturally have a difficult time maintaining a common cultural identity without a collective presence in their homeland. Only in its homeland can a people develop economically, culturally and socially as a homogeneous entity. In fact, this is the crux of why some of us consider it necessary to struggle to live in our homeland.

Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country's British heritage

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand.

Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.

Now, I know it's a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize. This is an illusion. It's an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not. It is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.

A civilization, a culture, cannot survive without passion, cannot be saved without passion.

Think about what there is to learn from your heritage, good and bad, and about what you want to cultivate and not cultivate.

We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for?

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.

If it was not for Rajiv Gandhi, urbanization in India would have been history.

I say it is indispensable to look ahead of and behind oneself in the present. If there is such a thing as tradition, and I believe there is, it can only exist in the sense of the most profound movements of culture.

In one aspect, my works record the history of the development of Chinese society. Concern about the situation of Chinese reality is one important theme of my works. I am trying to ask, 'How does our society develop? What are the problems in our society? Where is our direction leading?'