TEN QUOTES ON DEMOCRACY

 

          TEN QUOTES ON DEMOCRACY

            “Democracy” is defined as a system of government in which all the people of a country can vote to elect their representatives .             

1.     The 16h U. S. President Abraham Lincoln (189-1865) defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

            He also laid out his philosophical core of democracy in an 1858 fragment. It went like this:

                        “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”           

Here are more definitions by other great thinkers:

2.     The efforts of government alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must choose and the people must help themselves. ----John F. Kennedy Thirtyfifth President of the United States (1917-1963)

3.     No democracy can exist for long in the midst of want and poverty and inequality.---Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister (1889-1964).

4.     The ultimate failures of dictatorships cost humanity far more than any temporary failures of democracy,----Franklin D. Roosevelt Thirty-second president of the United States (1882-1945).

5.     People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.----Alan Moore, English author, born 18 November 1953.

6.     The love of democracy is that of equality.---French jurist, historian, and political philosopher Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu(1689-1755).

7.     Your little child is your only true democrat,---Mrs Hrriet Beecher, American author (1811-1896).

8.     If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically; so perfect a government is not suitable to men.---Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genevan philosopher and writer (1712-1778).

9.     Democracy will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from the delusive to the real, and make a new blessed world of use bye and bye,----Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist and historian(1795-1881).

10.             The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.----Alexis Charles Henri Clerel, comte de Tocqueville, French diplomat, philosopher and historian (1805-1859).

                                                      ________

PUNCHLINE: The devil was the first democrat.---English poet , Lord Byron (1788-1824).

                                                                  ********

G.R.Kanwal

23 July 2026

SOME THOUGHTS ON LOVE

 

                SOME THOUGHTS ON LOVE

            “Love” is briefly defined as: a strong feeling of deep affection for somebody. A bit longer definition encompasses : deep affection, care, respect, and a commitment to another person’s well-being, often involving compassion, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice for his/her happiness.

            True love must be sincere, cordial, unselfish, loyal, faithful, empathetic, compassionate, trust-worthy, and life-long.

              Some synonyms of love are:

            Affection, fondness, care, concern, attachment, regard, warmth, intimacy, devotion, adoration, passion, yearning, infatuation, and adulation.

                The English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) began  his poem entitled Love with the following words:

                   All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

                   Whatever stirs this mortal frame.

                    All are but ministers of Love,

                    And feed his sacred flame.             

                

                  For all human beings love is a necessity, not a luxury.

               

                Another English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson(1809-1892) said:

It is better to have loved and lost, than not to love at all.  

 

            According to the French author Victor Hugo (1802-1885): Life is a flower of which love is the honey. 

 

              The English poet and writer John Dryden (1631-1700)  had this to say:

 

            Love reckons hours for months, and days for years, and every little absence is an age.

 

            The English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) considered mutual loyalty and faithfulness the soul of love.

            Here is an extract from one of his poems:

           

                        Ah, love, let us be true

                        To one another! For the world, which seems

                        To lie before us like a land of dreams,

                        So various, so beautiful , so new,

                        Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

                        Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help, nor pains;

                        And we are here as on a darkling plain

                        Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,

                        Where ignorant armies clash by night.

                                                ________

PUNCHLINE: Life without love is like a body without soul.   

                                   

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

22 July 2026

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S THOUGHTS ON LIFE

 

                WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S THOUGHTS ON LIFE

          William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright. He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April 1564 and died there on the same date (23 April) in 1616.  

            He wrote 39 plays comprising Tragedies, Comedies, Histories, and Romances, 154 sonnets, and several narrative poems such as Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

            His unparallel greatness as a poet playwright and otherwise is based upon profound psychological depth and enduring impact on the English language.

             Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and  Romeo and Juliet are his most famous tragic plays.

            Given below are his famous thoughts on Life.

*The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.

**There is nothing in this world can make me joy:

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale

 Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;

And bitter shame hath spoil’d  the sweet world’s taste,

That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

 

***Out, out, brief candle !

Life ‘s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 

****Life is a shuttle.

 

*****We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

 

******I see a man’s life is a tedious one.

                        -----------

PUNCHLINE: In this world our life is that of a tourist.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

21 July 2026

 

 

SOME MEMORABLE THOUGHTS ABOUT FRIENSHIP

 

                SOME MEMORABLE THOUGHTS ABOUT FRIENSHIP

                        Lexically a friend is a person you know well and like, and who is not usually a member of your family.

                        According to another definition friendship is a voluntary, mutual relationship characterized by affection, trust, and companionship beyond casual acquaintance.  It is a bond where individuals support one another, share experiences, and engage in continuous mutual growth.

                        Some common synonyms of friendship are : companionship, comradeship, camaraderie. intimacy, amity, acquaintance,  and  fellowship.

                         A very intimate friend is your second self. He is an ‘alter ego’ because he embodies the same traits as you do.

                         Temporary friends are not worth having. They are opportunists. They will desert you in your unfortunate times.

                        A proverb says :  A friend in need is a friend indeed.

                        According to another : True friends provide support during hard times.

                        Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC---322 BC) said: Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

                        Give below are some famous quotes about  friendship:

*A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and sincerity.

He who has made this acquisition of a judicious and sympathizing friend, may be said to have doubled his mental resources.---English clergy Robert Hall (1764-1831).

** Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joy, and dividing our grief. ----English poet and essayist Joseph Addison (1672-1719).

***If a man does not make new acquaintances as he passes through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.---English author Samuel Johnson (1709-84).

****Purchase not friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give, such will cease to love.----English divine Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

*****A true friend is the gift of God, and he only who made hearts can unite them.---Robert South, English divine (1634-1716).

                                                            ******

G. R. Kanwal

20 July 2026           

 

REMEMBER

 

          REMEMBER

            *Knowledge without common sense is folly; without method it is waste, without kindness it is fanaticism; without religion it is death. But with common sense, it is wisdom; with method it is power; with character it is beneficence,    with religion, it is virtue, life and peace. ----The Talmud

            *Without labour nothing prospers.

            *A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.

            *A laugh is just like sunshine,

            For cheering folks along.

            A laugh is just like music,

            It lingers in the heart.------Anonymous

           

            *It is not growing like a tree

            In bulk, doth make Man better be;

            Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

            To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.

            A lily of a day

            Is fairer far in May,

            Although it fall and die that night---

            It was the plant and flower of Light.

            In small proportions we just beauties  see :

            And in short measures life may perfect be.

                                    ----English poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637).

 

 

            *Not gold, but only men can make

            A people great and strong---

            Men who, for truth and honour’s sake,

            Stand fast and suffer long.

            Brave men who work while others sleep,

            Who dare while others fly,

            They build a nation’s pillars deep,

            And lift them to the sky.

            ------American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

           

*It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are, but they only pay with interest what they have received.                  

------English critic and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay (1809-59).

 

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

19 July 2026

COMMENTS ON TENNYSON’S THE LOTUS EATERS

 

                COMMENTS ON TENNYSON’S THE LOTUS EATERS

                        “The Lotus Eaters” is a poem by the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). It is based on an incident in the epic poem Odyssey written by the ancient Greek poet Homer who lived during the 8^th century BCE on the coast of Asia Minor and belonged to a long tradition of wandering oral poet. In Book IX of his epic he wrote:

            “But on the tenth day we set foot on the land of lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food.’’

            This fruit had an adverse effect on them. They became victims of forgetfulness and an intense desire for ease and relaxation.

            They even forgot the way to their homes. Moreover they were in no mood to travel again.

            In the above-mentioned mood they make pertinent statements about exertion and relaxation and ask such questions as have very deep relevance to human life.

            Here are some selected lines from the poem:

“There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass---

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,

Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes.

                        -----

After this they ask:

 

“Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan.

Still from sorrow to another thrown:

Never ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

                                                ---

They further say:

The full juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,

Drops in a silent autumn night,

All its allotted length of days,

The flower ripens, in its place,

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

                                                ----

After this they firmly and rightly say:

 

Let us alone. What is it that will last?

All things are taken from us, and become

Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward grave

In silence; ripen, fall and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

                                    _____

 PUNCHLINE: Rest is rust if not followed by hard work.

                                      *******

G.R.Kanwal

17 July 2026

  

 

PERFECTION

 

                PERFECTION

                      What is perfect is flawless, faultless, unmarred, ideal, impeccable, consummate, immaculate, exemplary, superb, superlative, supreme, excellent, and wonderful.

                        If you are working on the perfection of any technique, you are trying to achieve improvement, refinement, consummation, superbness, and flawlessness.

                        A perfectionist is a stickler for perfection. He is a purist, formalist, precisionist, or idealist.

                        If a thing is perfectly good, it is utterly, absolutely, completely, altogether, fully, exquisitely, superbly, superbly, and wonderfully and thoroughly good.    

                        Perfection is however difficult to achieve. What seems perfect today, appears imperfect tomorrow. Even the world is not perfect after billions of years. Perfection is thus a process, not a final achievement,

                        The English writer John Ruskin (1819-1900) said: No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of misunderstanding of the ends of art.

                          According to the Greek philosopher Diogenes (died 323 BC) to arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct, either by the censures the admonitions of the other.

                        The French writer and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) says perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time           

                        The English courtier, orator and wit Philip Dormer Stanhope 4^th Earl of England (1694-1773) said: Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable, However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than whose laziness and despondency make them give  it up as unattainable.

                                      _______

PUNCHLINE : Napoleon said :  The word impossible exists in the dictionary of fools.

                                                            ****

G.R.Kanwal

16 July 2026