“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take religion. For the Hindu, it means little besides caste and cow-protection. For the Muslim, circumcision and kosher meat. For the Sikh, long hair and hatred of the Muslim. For the Christian, Hinduism with a sola topee. For the Parsi, fire-worship and feeding vultures. Ethics, which should be the kernel of a religious code, has been carefully removed.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Maorality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith. No reason, just faith.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Consciousness of the bad is an essential prerequisite to the promotion of the good.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“The doer must do only when the receiver is ready to receive. Otherwise, the act is wasted.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“If you look at things as they are, there does not seem to be a code either of man or of God on which one can pattern one's conduct. Wrong triumphs over right as much as right over wrong. Sometimes its triumphs are greater. What happens ultimately, you do not know. In such circumstances what can you do but cultivate an utter indifference to all values? Nothing matters. Nothing whatever...”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“In a country which had accepted caste distinctions for many centuries, inequality had become an inborn mental concept.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take modern Indian music of the films. It is all tango & rhumba or samba played on Hawaiian guitars, violins, accordions & clarinets. It is ugly. It must be scrapped like the rest.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“His mind was like the delicate spring of a watch, which quivers for several hours after it has been touched.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“His (Juggut Singh's) equation with authority was simple: he was on the other side. Personalities did not come into it. Subinspectors & policemen were people in khaki who frequently arrested him, always abused him, and sometimes beat him. Since they abused him and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take religion. For the Hindu, it means little besides caste and cow-protection. For the Muslim, circumcision and kosher meat. For the Sikh, long hair and hatred of the Muslim. For the Christian, Hinduism with a sola topee. For the Parsi, fire-worship and feeding vultures. Ethics, which should be the kernel of a religious code, has been carefully removed. Take”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Morality, Meet Singhji, is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“with their weapons. One struck it with his”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“missing anything. The northern horizon, which had turned a bluish grey, showed orange again. The orange turned into copper and then into a luminous russet. Red tongues of flame leaped into the black sky. A soft”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“It had always been so, until the summer of 1947. One”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.’ Iqbal”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Not forever lasts the spring Nor ever blossom flowers. Not forever reigneth joy, Sets the sun on days of bliss, Friendships not forever last, They know not life, who know not this. ‘They know not life, who know not this,”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Consciousness of the bad is an essential prerequisite to the promotion of the good. It is no use trying to build a second storey on a house whose walls are rotten. It is best to demolish it. It is both cowardly and foolhardy to kowtow to social standards when one believes neither in the society nor in its standards. Their courage is your cowardice, their cowardice your courage. It is all a matter of nomenclature. One could say it needs courage to be a coward. A conundrum, but a quotable one. Make a note of it. And”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“Not forever does the bulbul sing In balmy shades of bowers, Not forever lasts the spring Nor ever blossom flowers. Not forever reigneth joy, Sets the sun on days of bliss, Friendships not forever last, They know not life, who know not this.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“What do the Gandhi-caps in Delhi know about the Punjab? What is happening on the other side in Pakistan does not matter to them. They have not lost their homes and belongings; they haven’t had their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters raped and murdered in the streets.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
“And all the mumbo-jumbo of reincarnation. Man into ox into ape into beetle into eight million four hundred thousand kinds of animate things. Proof? We do not go in for such pedestrian pastimes as proof! That is Western. We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith. No reason, just faith.”
― Khushwant Singh, quote from Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh
Born place: in Hadali, British India, now Pakistan
Born date February 2, 1915
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