Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was a great orator, teacher, scholar, philosopher, academician, and statesman. He was the first vice president and the second president of independent India. Born on September 5, 1888, Dr Radhakrishnan died on April 17, 1975. Every year, his birthday is celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India. Dr Radhakrishnan’s noble thoughts and ideas continue to influence today’s generation.
On his death anniversary, here are some of his inspiring quotes:
1. Books are the means by which we build bridges between cultures.
2. Tolerance is the homage which the finite mind pays to the inexhaustibility of the infinite.
3. Knowledge gives us power; love gives us the fullness.
4. When we think we know we cease to learn.
5. God lives, feels, and suffers in every one of us, and in course of time, His attributes, knowledge, beauty and love will be revealed in each of us.
6. The end-product of education should be a free creative man, who can battle against historical circumstances and adversities of nature.
7. True religion is a revolutionary force: it is an inveterate enemy of oppression, privilege, and injustice.
8. The main function of a university is not to grant degrees and diplomas but to develop the university spirit and advance learning. The former is impossible without corporate life, the latter without honours and post-graduate.
9. Discontent with the actual is the necessary precondition of every moral change and spiritual rebirth.
10. Teachers should be the best mind in the country.
11. It is not God that is worshipped but the authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not a violation of integrity.
12. The worst sinner has a future, even as the greatest saint has had a past. No one is so good or bad as he imagines.
13. It takes centuries to make a little history; it takes centuries of history to make a tradition.
