Shashi Tharoor Quotes

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.

There is not a thing as the wrong place, or the wrong time. We are where we are at the only time we have. Perhaps it's where we're meant to be.

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.

India has been born and reborn scores of times, and it will be reborn again. India is forever, and India is forever being made.

If you believe in truth and cared enough to obtain it, you had to be prepared actively to suffer for it.

It's not the side of the bigger army that wins. It's the country that tells a better story.

If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali--a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.

Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy -- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.

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.

Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?

Western dictionaries define secularism as absence of religion but Indian secularism does not mean irreligiousness.It means profusion of religions.

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.

Diplomacy is much like the "lovemaking of elephants", which is accompanied with a lot of bellowing and other sound effects, but no one can be sure of the consequences for at least the next two years

In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.

No one says "Gee Whiz!" very much these days, of course, not even in America - both because that expression has long since been supplanted by others more colourful and less printable, and because our capacity for surprise has long since been dulled by a surfeit of sources.

The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts.