The idea that human beings can make history, that is something quite unique to the modern West. Pankaj Mishra More Quotes by Pankaj Mishra More Quotes From Pankaj Mishra I myself, at one time, wanted to be like the explorers of the Himalayas that I used to read about; people intoxicated on the myth of history. Pankaj Mishra himalayas used people Most writers have very little that's important or valuable to offer; most of them are just repeating each other. Pankaj Mishra valuable important littles I still prefer going to the classical writers, the modernists and the nineteenth century writers. Much of what has been done since then has just been repetition. A lot of it is marvelous but the forms haven't changed. Pankaj Mishra century form done Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head. Pankaj Mishra humans suffering made I think what's important and extraordinarily practical about Buddhism, is that it offers very concrete methods for people to work with. Pankaj Mishra buddhism people thinking You have to be able to decide, 'Well no, I'm not going to be violent, I'm going to suppress that impulse; I'm not going to be greedy.' Unless you're able to do that you're stuck with adversarial politics that leads nowhere and creates ever greater violence. Pankaj Mishra greedy able violence There have been many instances of people combining the political life with the spiritual life, a life of constant self-examination. Gandhi was a great example of that. Pankaj Mishra self spiritual people I think excessive rationality can be very dangerous. Certainly the kind of rationality we've seen in the last hundred years, and still see on a daily basis when Madeleine Albright says that it's all right, we have to live with the idea of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dying because it contains Saddam Hussein. Pankaj Mishra children years thinking Buddhism has always been a religion for people who've worked their way through a cycle of materialism and still feel discontented and want more, or have questions that their state of prosperity is not answering. Pankaj Mishra buddhism want people The French Revolution actualised the Enlightenment's greatest intellectual breakthrough: detaching the political from the theocratic. Pankaj Mishra revolution political intellectual Indonesia's diversity is formidable: some thirteen and a half thousand islands, two hundred and fifty million people, around three hundred and sixty ethnic groups, and more than seven hundred languages. Pankaj Mishra some diversity three people The British Empire passed quickly and with less humiliation than its French and Dutch counterparts, but decades later, the vicious politics of partition still seems to define India and Pakistan. Pankaj Mishra humiliation pakistan india politics Thomas Friedman's 'The World is Flat' sold more copies in India than in the U.K. The market for go-getting business books or wonkish tomes by corporate moguls posing as philosopher kings has grown dramatically in modernising China and India. Pankaj Mishra posing india business world Governments everywhere that are unable to guarantee equitable growth and social welfare have suffered a fatal decay of legitimacy. Pankaj Mishra welfare decay growth social An enlarged global public society, with its many dissenting and corrective voices, can quickly call the bluff of lavishly credentialled and smug intellectual elites. Pankaj Mishra call many society intellectual Enlightenment values of individual freedom are manifested best in individual acts of criticism and defiance. Pankaj Mishra best enlightenment freedom criticism Many ethnic minorities chafed at the postcolonial nationalism of India and Pakistan, and some rebelled. Pankaj Mishra some nationalism pakistan india No Muslim country has ever done as much as Turkey to make itself over in the image of a European nation-state; the country's westernised elite brutally imposed secularism, among other things, on its devout population of peasants. Pankaj Mishra image things done country Countries that managed to rebuild commanding state structures after popular nationalist revolutions - such as China, Vietnam, and Iran - look stable and cohesive when compared with a traditional monarchy such as Thailand or wholly artificial nation-states like Iraq and Syria. Pankaj Mishra like look thailand china It turns out that globalisation, while promising sameness through brand-name consumption, was fostering, through uneven economic growth, an intense feeling of difference. Pankaj Mishra difference through feeling growth
