Dr. Kokintz when asked if being drunk will reduce the effects of nuclear radiation in The Mouse that Roared

With the weapons we have at the present time, neither sobriety nor intoxication will make any difference. There are no chances of survival.”

Count of Mountjoy in The Mouse that Roared

But, Your Highness, we cannot feed our people on honour. If it is a choice between honour and want, between spiritual or physical survival, then the material things must come first. Man did not discover he had a soul until he was well fed, with prospects of that condition continuing for some time. Hungry people cannot afford honour and hungry nations cannot indulge in too nice manners.

Tully Boscomb over the idea to be Communist in The Mouse that Roared

You said that little nations have a right to survive as well as big ones, that is true. But big and rich nations should not be victimized just because they are big and rich. Because the United States has money and to spare does not make it any less wrong to trick some of that money out of her. To rob the millionaire is as dishonourable a thing as to rob the widow. We cannot hold our head up as a nation if we have survived by fraud; we can no longer talk of national pride if we have stooped to international thievery. If by such methods we obtained enough money from the United States to make every man, woman, and child in Grand Fenwick a millionaire, they would be blackguard millionaires, all guilty of selling their country’s honour for their own individual survival.

Tully Boscomb over any disturbance if the bomb explodes during his marriage with the Duchess in The Mouse that Roared

“If anything were to happen to the bomb, hardly a country in the world would be left with a leader.”

Roger Fenwick in The Mouse that Roared

“I have seen no king seated upon a throne by Almighty God, but many who mounted there over a pile of broken heads. What is good enough for kings is good enough for dukes.”

Churchill

British policy for four hundred years has been to oppose the strongest power in Europe by weaving together a combination of other countries strong enough to face the bully. Sometimes it is Spain, sometimes the French monarchy, sometimes the French Empire, sometimes Germany. I have no doubt about who it is now. But if France set up to claim the over-lordship of Europe, I should equally endeavour to oppose them. It is thus through the centuries we have kept our liberties and maintained our life and power.

Woodrow Wilson when asked why he put 3 million Germans in Czechoslovakia

Why, Masaryk never told me that!

Four Revolting Quotes on 1857 Revolt

Charles Dickens: “I wish I were commander-in-chief in India … I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race.”

Karl Marx: “The question is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.”

L’Estaffette, French newspaper: “Intervene in favour of the Indians, launch all our squadrons on the seas, join our efforts with those of Russia against British India …such is the only policy truly worthy of the glorious traditions of France.”

The Guardian: “We sincerely hope that the terrible lesson thus taught will never be forgotten … We may rely on native bayonets, but they must be officered by Europeans.”

Frederich Ebert

If the Kaiser does not abdicate, the social revolution is unavoidable. But I do not want it, indeed I hate it like sin

Conversation between a Mughal General laying siege to Ahmednagar fort and Afzal Khan, the ambassador from Ahmednagar

Mughal General –
What nonsense is this? You, like a eunuch, are keeping n woman in the fort in the hope that she will come to your aid… This man is the son of his Majesty the Emperor, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar, at whose court many kings do service. Do you imagine that the crows and kites of the Deccan, who squat like ants or locusts over a few spiders, can cope with the descendant of Timur and his famous amirs- the Khan-i Khanan and Shahbaz Khan, for example – each of whom has conquered countries ten times as large as the Deccan? … You, who are men of the same race as ourselves, should not throw yourselves away for no purpose.
Afzal Khan –
For forty years I have eaten the salt of the sultans of the Deccan…There is no better way to die than to be slain for one’s benefactor. thereby obtaining an everlasting good name…Moreover, it should bc evident to you that the people of this country are hostile toward Westerners. I myself am a Westerner and a well-wisher of the emperor, and I consider it to be in his interest to withdraw the Prince’s great amirs from the neighbourhood of this fort.

On Native Land

अपि स्वर्णमयी लङ्का न मे लक्ष्मण रोचते।
जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी॥

From Ramayana

Lakshmana, Even Lanka, decked with all it’s gold doesn’t endear itself to me; Mother and Motherland are greater even than heaven.

On Doctors and Medicine

शरीरे जर्जरीभूते व्यIधिग्रस्ते कलेबरे |
औषधं जाह्नवीतोयं वैद्यो नारायणो हरिः ||

When the body is suffering and the body is beset with disease, medicine is like the sacred water of the Ganga and the doctor is nArAyaNa Himself

On Brahmins

कर्णाटकाश्च तैलंगा द्राविडा महाराष्ट्रकाः,
गुर्जराश्चेति पञ्चैव द्राविडा विन्ध्यदक्षिणे ||
सारस्वताः कान्यकुब्जा गौडा उत्कलमैथिलाः,
पन्चगौडा इति ख्याता विन्ध्स्योत्तरवासिनः ||

From Rajatarangini of Kalhana

Karnataka, Telugu, Dravida, Maharashtra and Gurjara are Pancha Dravida Brahmin Clans and existed South of Vindhyas. Saraswata,Kanyakubja, Gauda, Utkala, Maithili are Pancha Gauda Brahmin Clans and existed North of Vindhyas.

On Brahmins

जन्मना जायते शूद्रः. संस्कारात् द्विजं उच्यते |
वेद-पाठात् भवेत् विप्रः ब्रह्म जानाति ब्राह्मणः|

From Skandapurana –
Everyone is Shudra by birth. With Sanskaras (the system of 16 sanskaras in dharma) makes a person “Dvija”. Mastering Vedas (knowledge) makes one “Vipra”. One becomes a “Brahmana” as he attains “Brahma-Jnana”.

Cambysses in The Egyptian Princess

“Strange beings, these men of Palestine! I have heard it said that ye believe in one God alone, who can be represented by no likeness, and is a spirit. Think ye then that this omnipresent Being requires a house? Verily, your great spirit can be but a weak and miserable creature, if he need a covering from the wind and rain, and a shelter from the heat which he himself has created. If your God be like ours, omnipresent, fall down before him and worship as we do, in every place, and feel certain that everywhere ye will be heard of him!”

Odysseus to Achilles in the movie Troy

War is young men dying and old men talking

Nehru on Chinese Occupation of Tibet in Parliament

Many things happen in the world which we do not like and which we would wish were rather different but we do not go like Don Quixote with lance in hand against everything that we dislike. We put up with these things because we would be, without making any difference, merely getting into trouble

What is he saying? That China is too powerful to tackle and don’t ever think of being on the wrong side of it?

K. Godage over India’s National Security Advisor asking Sri Lanka to buy weapons only from India and that no offensive weapons wil be provided in ‘Daily Mirror’ and ‘The Island’(2nd June 2007)

Does this man want us to ask them for catapults?