"Hindus who used words such as religion, or secular, or Hinduism were not merely displaying their fluency in English. They were also adopting a new and alien perspective on their country, and turning it to their advantage."

"The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script... for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union..."

"A universal language for India should be Hindi, with the option of writing in Persian or Nagari characters. In order that Hindus and Mahomedans may have closer relations, it is necessary to know both the characters. And, if we can do this, we can drive the English language out of the field in a short time. All this is necessary for us, slaves. Through our slavery the nation has been enslaved, and it will be free with our freedom."

"“By annihilating native literature, by sweeping away from all sources of pride and pleasure in their own mental efforts, by rendering a whole people dependent upon a remote and unknown country for all their ideas and the words in which to clothe them, we should degrade their character, depress their energies and render them incapable of aspiring to any intellectual distinction.”"

"For the generation that had successfully concluded the freedom struggle and that laid down a language policy in the Constituent Assembly, it was obvious that free India’s link language could not be the colonial language. A vote was held to choose between Hindi and Sanskrit, which Hindi won with the narrowest of margins. This meant that Hindi would replace English for all official purposes by 1965. But when 1965 came, the memory of the freedom struggle and its nationalist fervour had dimmed sufficiently, while under Nehru the English-speaking elite had gained enough self-confidence to thwart the explicit choice of the Founding Fathers. Since then, English has completely elbowed out Hindi and the other vernaculars, to the extent that schools with the vernacular as medium of instruction are shunned and have come under pressure to switch over to English. A nation with a glorious literary tradition is now voluntarily turning into an underdeveloped country dependent on the former colonial language for all grown-up purposes, where virtually the whole next generation will be schooled through English as medium. [...] In language, the first choice made by the Constituent Assembly was anti-colonial, viz. for a replacement of the colonizer’s language with a native alternative. Yet, by the due date of 26 January 1965, it was decided to overrule the Constitution and perpetuate English as lingua franca. This was a choice made by Indians, not foisted on them by British colonialism nor by other outside factors like American imperialism. This choice reduced the vast majority of Indians to second-class status."

"According to the Constitution, English should have been phased out by 1965; no outside power was involved when the Indian elite sabotaged this switch. This elite profited too much from the disenfranchisement of the Indian commoners by the dominance of English. Without saying it out loud, they thanked Macaulay for their linguistic privileges... “Decolonization” implies the belated phasing out of English, but this will involve the defeat not of some foreign colonizer but of the indigenous elite."

"A bad shearer never had a good syckle."

"There is only eight years between success and failure in politics."

"The dogs bark but the caravan goes on."

"Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties."

"There are no small parts, only small actors."

"There's no time like the present."

"The man who sleeps with a machete is a fool every night but one."

"A thief thinks everyone steals."

"Shit or get off the pot."

"Repetition is the mother of memory."

"Put a beggar on horseback and he'll ride it to death."

"A rising tide lifts all boats."

"Say something nice or say nothing at all."

"Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, he eats for the rest of his life."

"Still waters run deep."

"Success (only) comes after every necessary precaution."

"Take an old dirty, hungry, mangy, sick and wet dog and feed him and wash him and nurse him back to health, and he will never turn on you and bite you. This is how man and dog differ."

"That which does not kill you, makes you stronger."

"The teacher has not taught, until the student has learned."

"There is no smoke without fire."

"There is a thin line between love and hate."

"There's always a calm before a storm."

"Shoemaker, not above the sandal"

"The pitcher which goes too often to the well gets broken."

"An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of wit."

"Opportunity knocks only once."

"Out of small acorns grow mighty oaks."

"Poets are born, but orators are trained."

"One should fight fire with fire."

"Perfect Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. (a.k.a The six P's)"

"Pride comes before the fall. (Pride comes before a fall.)"

"Proverbs run in pairs."

"Put a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the devil."

"Reality is often stranger than fiction."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"The rotten apple injures its neighbors."

"Seeing is believing."

"Self trust is the first secret of success."

"Someone who gossips to you will gossip about you."

"Something is better than nothing."

"Stolen fruit is the sweetest."

"One rotten apple will spoil the whole barrel."