17 quotes
I have after years of thinking on the subject come to the conviction that work is the only instrument of effective education. It may sometimes be manual work, at others, non-manual work.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
For God’s sake, reform and improve the politics of our country.
Quest for Truth (1999)
Education should be able to distinguish between the heritage that helps and that heritage hampers the tradition that undermines and the tradition that fortifies.
Had your mother not been so well-organized, so simple, so virtuous and so resourceful, I would not have been what I am today.
Quest for Truth (1999)
Our sweat is the answer to all our problems, and that the tiller, the artisan and the teacher are the three agents who feed the body, mind and soul.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
Education is the master and politics is its servant. It is necessary to combine power with morality as well as with science and technology
I maintain that education is a prime instrument of national purpose and that the quality of its education is inseparably involved in the quality of the nation.
Feeble beliefs must be replaced by healthier habits and irrelevant institutions by progressive institutions. Our will should get guidance not form the twilight of the intellect but from the broad daylight of true beliefs.
I may be forgiven the assumption that my choice to the highest office is mainly, if not entirely, made on account of my long association with the education of my people.
Quest for Truth (1999)
Placed under the sway of conflicting urges of the Indian masses we are yet given the poetic quality of composing a harmonious life. There are thousand stands of culture that make of the cultural life of our people a variegated pattern of exquisite beauty and richness.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
It seems that institution has a great role to play in the development of India’s national life. Were I not convinced of this I would not have come to Aligarh leaving the Jamia work, to which intellectually and emotionally I am so deeply committed.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
If you ask me to continue as the Chairman of Rajya Sabha, I am not so weak as to refuse this challenge...If you ask me to go to the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, I am not so strong as to refuse this offer.
Quest for Truth (1999)
Life is immense, comprehensive and dynamic. It includes spirit and matter and idealism and pragmatism and rotates round the axis of the noble and the ignoble. Life strives for higher ends. It is a mission, a service, and finally worship.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
To seek to exclude any of these because of age or association with some particular elements of our national being would almost be an act of treason. In the rich history of our country nothing is good or bad because it is new or old...Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or Parsi.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
The aim of a student’s life should be to overcome any illusions or prejudices he may have and to give up mean habits. He should, and it is his duty to, propagate education among his illiterate brothers and to consider the propagation of education as part of his own education. He ought to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowledge and he should not be unaware of the needs of life.
Quest for Truth (1999)
Streams of ideals that originated in the summit of our past, flowing underground in the depth of India’s soul, the ideals of simplicity of life, clarity of spiritual vision, purity of heart, harmony with the universe and consciousness of the infinite personality in all creation and the urge to bring these to the surface of our daily use and purification.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)
The edifice of my educational thought is almost entirely beholden to the views of Kerschensteiner. At later stages, however, Gandhiji’s influence and his elaboration of some of the finest points on the subject provided the much needed depth and expansion. Words turned into projects and a mere conceptual and transient framework became an insuperable part of my life.
Quest for Truth (1999)