Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.
Interpretation
Culture enriches our understanding and connects us to deeper aspects of life.
Jawaharlal Nehru's quote emphasizes the importance of culture in expanding our intellectual and emotional capacities. He suggests that by engaging with diverse cultures, we can broaden our perspectives and enhance our spiritual growth, fostering a more profound connection to humanity and the world around us.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one might reference this quote to highlight the value of cultural awareness.
Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.
Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.
The whole of existence is dancing, except man. The whole of existence is in a very relaxed movement; movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a very relaxed way. No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim of his mind.
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.
A total spiritual direction given to the whole life and the whole nature can alone lift humanity beyond itself. . . It is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the Spirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and uplifting of our insufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramental Supernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle.
There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.
There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
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