Shashi Tharoor quotes

Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician, diplomat, and acclaimed author known for his eloquence and intellect. A former UN Under-Secretary-General, he has become a prominent voice in global affairs and Indian politics. He serves as a Member of Parliament and continues to contribute to debates on international relations, culture, and history. Here are 49 of his quotes:

A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling effect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes, whereas wisdom, true wisdom is eternal immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it. (Shashi Tharoor)
India has been born and reborn scores of times, and it will be reborn again. India is forever, and India is forever being made. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. ... India matters to me and I would like to matter to India. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
The British are the only people in history crass enough to have made revolutionaries out of Americans. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
On Gandhi: Don't ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
In China, national priorities are established by the Government and then funded by the state; in India, priorities emerge from seemingly endless discussions and arguments amongst myriad interests, and funds have to be found where they might. (Shashi Tharoor)
Does NRI (Non-Resident Indian) stand for Not Really Indian or Never Relinquished India? I believe a little of both! View quote
Shashi Tharoor
The memories of the first Independence Day may have faded, but the power of that magical moment must never be forgotten. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
The instinctive Indian sense that nothing begins and nothing ends. We are all living in an eternal present in which what was and what will be is contained in what is, or to put it in a more contemporary idiom, that life is a series of sequel to history. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
No Indian nationalist leader ever needed to say: We have created India; now all we need to do is to create Indians. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
We Indians, Arjun, are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long. Today most people are simply aware of their own irrelevance to the process. They see themselves standing helplessly on the margins while professional politicians and unprofessional politicians combine to run the country to the ground. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Like India herself, I am at home in hovels and palaces, Ganapathi, I trundle in bullock-carts and propel myself into space, I read the vedas and quote the laws of cricket. I move to the strains of a morning raga in perfect evening dress. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Ultimately, what matters in determining the validity of a nation is the will of its inhabitants to live and strive together. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Dissent, is like a Gurkha's ‘khukri', once it emerges form its sheath it must draw blood before it can be put away again. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
"It was as if he had heard what I wanted," she said. But a skilled magician can do that, and it would be wrong to see Sai Baba as a conjurer. He has channeled the hopes and energies of his followers into constructive directions, both spiritual and philanthropic. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilization, shaped by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. (Shashi Tharoor)
To speak of Hindu fundamentalism, is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals. To be an Indian Hindu is to be part of an elusive dream all share, a dream that fills our minds with sounds, words, flavours from many sources that we cannot easily identify. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
We Indians are notoriously good at being resigned to our lot. Our fatalism goes beyond, even if it springs from, the Hindu acceptance of the world as it is ordained to be. I must tell you a little story - a marvellous fable from our puranas that illustrates our resilience and self-absorption in the face of circumstances. A man is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but his panting heart tells him that he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws... View quote
Shashi Tharoor
This is my story of the India I know, with its biases, selections, omissions, distortions, all mine.... Every Indian must for ever carry with him, in his head and heart, his own history of India. View quote
Shashi Tharoor
India imposes no procrustean exactions on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing. View quote
Shashi Tharoor