Azim Premji Quotes

We all are Indians, and that should be our only religion. What is the need to be called a Hindu, Muslim, or Christian? Does anybody have any religion or caste at the time of birth?

The Muslim is as much an Indian as I am and of the same blood.

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.

Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity.

We in the West tend to think of a nation subdivided into different religions. Islam sees itself as a religion subdivided into different nations.

The idea of India is not based on language, not on geography, not on ethnicity and not on religion. The idea of India is of one land embracing many. You can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Keralite, a good Muslim and a good Indian all at once.

It is claimed that religious unity is also a factor in the formation of nations. Whereas, we see the contrary in the Turkish nation. Turks were a great nation even before they adopted Islam. This religion did not help the Arabs, Iranians, Egyptians and others to unite with Turks to form a nation. Conversely, it weakened the Turks’ national relations; it numbed Turkish national feelings and enthusiasm. This was natural, because Mohammedanism was based on Arab nationalism above all nationalities.

I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.

The thing about India is that even if the economic backgrounds are different, the cultural background is the same. Somebody who is working as a tailor will also tie a black thread around his kid's wrist; so will somebody in Bollywood. That's the fun of being Indian.

It is my hope that inter-religious and ecumenical cooperation will demonstrate that men and women do not have to forsake their identity, whether ethnic or religious, in order to live in harmony with their brothers and sisters. If we are honest in presenting our convictions, we will be able to see more clearly what we hold in common.

If I were a child of Tibet or of Arabia, I suspect the path I'd walk would be the Buddhist path or the Muslim path. And I don't mind saying that I don't invalidate any of those paths.

We are Indians, firstly and lastly.

There's a lot of America that's Christian. I would not describe us, though, on the whole, as a Christian nation.

I want to learn about a different religion. I grew up Catholic, but my grandfather was Jewish. Knowledge about other religions can help you understand your own better. I think it's kind of hypocritical to believe one thing and don't know about any others.

I come from an almost wholly secular background and have no quarrel with religion.

I don't teach my children what is Hindu and what is Muslim.

I love my heritage both as someone who grew up as a Muslim and as an Indian - it's part of who I am and I would never deny it.

The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

Indeed if we Christians so tell our story that Judaism is silenced, then we have not spoken rightly of Christ.

The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India.

I am Jewish, Italian, American, Catholic.

Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool.

My mother, a nonpracticing Jew from Delaware, had married a non-practicing Protestant in California. Sometimes, certainly not always, Jew + Protestant = Unitarian, and that is what we were - 'Jewnitarians,' as I like to say.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.