Nagesh Belludi

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher, Writer)

Confidence in a forecast rises with the amount of information that goes into it. But the accuracy of the forecast stays the same.
—Dean Williams (Australian Leadership Consultant)

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
—Pablo Neruda (Chilean Poet)

As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not. He raiseth his head like a tower on a hill, and the arrows of fortune drop at his feet. In the instant of danger, the courage of his heart here, and scorn to fly.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity. … Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue, … a conversation with God.
—Henri Nouwen (Dutch Catholic Priest)

The ideals and objectives of yesterday was still ideals of today, but they lost some of their luster and even, as one seemed to go towards them, they lost the shining beauty which had warmed the heart and vitalized the body. Evil triumphed often enough, but what was far worse was the coarsening and distortion of what seemed so right. Was human nature so essentially bad that it would take ages of training, through suffering and misfortune, before it could behave reasonably and raise man above the creature of lust and violence and deceit that he now was? And, meanwhile, was every effort to change radically in the present or the near future doomed to failure.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Despite some of the horrors and barbarisms of modern life which appall and grieve us, life in the twentieth century undeniably has—or has the potentiality of—such richness, joy and adventure as were unknown to our ancestors except in their dreams.
—Arthur Compton (American Physicist)

A human life is a story told by God.
—Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Author)

It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
—Russell Baker (American Journalist, Humorist)

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
—Shunryu Suzuki (Buddhist Monk, Author)

Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man in his endowment with personal capacities. The stars are not so strange as the mind that studies them, analyzes their light, and measures their distance.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (American Baptist Minister)

One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common—discontent.
—Matthew Arnold (English Poet, Critic)

The first principle of success is desire—knowing what you want. Desire is the planting of your seed. Very few persons, comparatively, know how to Desire with sufficient intensity. They do not know what it is to feel and manifest that intense, eager, longing, craving, insistent, demanding, ravenous Desire which is akin to the persistent, insistent, ardent, overwhelming desire of the drowning man for a breath of air; of the shipwrecked or desert-lost man for a drink of water; of the famished man for bread and meat.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
—Zhuang Zhou (Chinese Taoist Philosopher)

When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice. Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens.
—Amos Tversky (Israeli Cognitive Psychologist)

Pleasure is a poor substitute for happiness.
—Akbarali H. Jetha (Indian Author)

A living entity cannot derive real benefit by reading hundreds of books or pretending to render devotional service according to his own ideas.
—Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)

Like other traditions, the tradition of reason is learnt, not innate. It too lies between instinct and reason; and the question of the real reasonableness and truth of this tradition of proclaimed reason and truth must now also scrupulously be examined.
—Friedrich Hayek (British Economist, Social Philosopher)