Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge... At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.

The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

-- Confucius

My mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.

-- Thomas Hobbes

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

-- Blaise Pascal

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

-- Bertrand Russell

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

-- Bertrand Russell

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

-- William James