Sikhs Quotes & Sayings

Football is one side of me. Art is another. Travel is another. — Dhani Jones

In Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan, the bloody violence sweeping India after partition has not yet touched Mano Majra, a small village of Muslims and Sikhs on the India-Pakistan border. But in the summer of 1947, the murder of a Hindu moneylender and the arrival of a trainful of dead Sikhs set off a tragic chain of events. — Nancy Pearl

Because our right to worship freely and safely, that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina, and that was denied Jews in Kansas City, and that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights too. Our right to peaceful assembly, that right was robbed from movie goers in Aurora and Lafayette. — Barack Obama

It isn't a coincidence that the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat happened after September 11. Gujarat is also one place where the toxic waste of the World Trade Center is being dumped right now. This waste is being dumped in Gujarat, and then taken of to Ludhiana and places like that to be recycled. I think it's quite a metaphor. The demonization of Muslims has also been given legitimacy by the world's superpower, by the emperor himself. We are at a stage where democracy - this corrupted, scandalous version of democracy - is the problem. So much of what politicians do is with an eye on elections. Wars are fought as election campaigns. In India, Muslims are killed as part of election campaigns. In 1984, after the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, the Congress Party won, hands down. We must ask ourselves very serious questions about this particular brand of democracy. — Arundhati Roy

Whether the Sikhs want to worship in Wisconsin or the Christians want to worship in Texas or the Jews want to worship in New York, we're living under the magnificent umbrella of a Constitution that says we can. — Marianne Williamson

When you live in America, it's kind of insular - the news coverage that you get - unless you're really smart about it and find more international news coverage. I've learned that from my husband. In the French culture, they talk politics. — Kim Raver

Think of the great spirits of the last 50 years: Ghandi killed, not by a Pakistani Muslim, but one of his own Hindus, who hated him because he wanted India for the Muslims, the Sikhs, for everybody; Sadat, killed by the organization that Mr. bin Laden's No. 2 heads now, not by an Israeli, but by an Egyptian. My friend Yitzhak Rabin
after a lifetime defending Israel, killed
not by a Palestinian terrorist, but an angry Israeli because he wanted to lay down arms and take up peace ... Fanatics are defined by their hatreds; free people by their humanity. — William J. Clinton

The look he gave me ... My stomach quivered in that exact same way when I watched Before Sunset, yearning for a guy to know me so deeply and truly, we were only really complete when we were together. That I could talk, go on wild tangents, make obtuse references, and he would divine my meaning before I knew what I was trying to say myself. Erik had fallen asleep next to me on the couch, complaining later that the movie was "just people talking." He had no idea that this movie could have been a love letter written for me. — Justina Chen

It is easy for those who conflate religion with government to interpret any criticism of government or policy as an 'attack' on their 'faith'. — Christina Engela

Stop calling me Car, alright? I'm not an automobile. — R.J. Lewis

The Filipino is worth dying for. — Benigno Aquino Jr.

Theatre is the most perfect artistic form of coercion. — Augusto Boal

When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. Faith-based — Jon Krakauer

I'm not in favour of dividing Hindus and Sikhs. I'm not in favour of dividing Hindus and Christians. All the citizens, all the voters, are my countrymen. — Narendra Modi

The turban is an inextricable part of the Sikh identity. Sikhs say you may take off their head but not the turban. — Preneet Kaur

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. — Jon Krakauer

In San Francisco they founded a newspaper, The Ghadr (Revolution), which was distributed in the large Indian communities of the Pacific ports and regularly smuggled into India. In 1914 the 'Ghadrities', as they came to be called, were able to induce several thousand Sikhs to sail for home, bent on trouble. Despite Government precautions, many reached the Punjab. — Hugh Toye

Jill, we became parents so we could tell our kids what to do. Otherwise we're just the tallest people living here. — Tim Allen

I've learned much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me with the power of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature must be touched lightly, and the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength ... And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are millions of paths to the divine. — Sarah Macdonald

O great creator of being grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives. — Jim Morrison

Nanak wanted to preach people that God loves both the Hindus and the Muslims the same way. Believing in his spiritual encounter, he wanted to eliminate the distance between the Hindus and the Muslims by teaching the words of equality and One God. But just like usual, he ended up forming yet another religion which became more and more hardcore with its own rituals and regulations in the hands of the subsequent nine Gurus. — Abhijit Naskar

There's definitely a magical quality to writing that can't be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together. — Mary J. Miller

The blast wave that passed through my sister's office doubtless passed through devout Muslims, atheist Muslims, gay Muslims, funny Muslims, and lovestruck Muslims - not to mention Pakistani Christians, Chinese engineers, American security contractors, and Indian Sikhs. What civilization, then, did the bomb target? And from what civilization did it originate? — Mohsin Hamid

I don't think men approach me for intellectual conversation. — Megan Fox

To the Sikhs the Golden Temple is just as holy as the Kaaba in Mecca is to Moslems, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Christians. Had — Carveth Wells

My parents had come from Mexico, a short road in my imagination. I felt myself as coming from a caramelized planet, an upside-down planet, pineapple-cratered. Though I was born here, I came from the other side of the looking glass, as did Alice, though not alone like Alice. Downtown I saw lots of brown people. Old men on benches. Winks from Filipinos. Sikhs who worked in the fields were the most mysterious brown men, their heads wrapped in turbans. They were the rose men. They looked like roses. — Richard Rodriguez

But he did not say a thing. Of late, almost as if he had been brought into line with the way people now spoke of the Sikhs, he had come to dislike the sound of his dissenting voice. It made him feel like a bore and an activist; and, like many people who try to fight an emerging status quo, no matter how ugly it is, he felt himself subdued, not by arguments, but by its casual tyranny. It is easier to fight the knowing bigot than it is to fight prejudice in the mouth of a child or the throwaway remark of a society lady. — Aatish Taseer

All these stories of Janamsakhi were like an artistic instrument that was yielded more to spread Nanak's spiritual sovereignty as a mystical prophet than as an effective teacher in flesh and blood. In the midst of ignorance and mystical craving, they provided a simple method to guide people, or rather allure them to a newly formed religious path by sermonizing through stories of mystical non-sense. — Abhijit Naskar

I met a man at a party. He said "I'm writing a novel" I said "Oh really? Neither am I. — Peter Cook

He was teaching them to hate, wife. He tells them to hate Hindus and Buddhists and Jains and Sikhs and who knows what other vegetarians. Will you have hateful children, woman? — Salman Rushdie

All of his (Nanak's) progressive thinking attained absolution at the age of 30, when he had the transcendental experience, quite similar to that of Mohammed and Joan of Arc, that was about to rock the very foundation of orthodox Hinduism in India. — Abhijit Naskar

Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last -
That Time long past — Percy Bysshe Shelley