Snippets

"There a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, 'I don't want you to let me down again.'" --George W. Bush, Boston, Oct. 3, 2000.

"Are non-state actors coming from heaven or are they coming from another planet? Non-state actors are operating from the territory of a particular country." - Pranab Mukherjee. Unfortunately, the problem is not where they are coming from, it is where they believe they are getting into.

"When people, ostensibly seeking justice, stoop to violence, peace can never prevail. Peace is always desirable for its own sake, and every other desirable state comes after peace, not along with it. So, the maxim to follow, when peace is the desired state, is, "Ignore the problems, and avail of the opportunities." - Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

"This woman (Madonna) comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts," - Roman Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina, during his homily at a Mass in honor of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw the deaths of some 3,200 dissidents during his 1973-1990 rule. Cardinal Medina has also said that some of those who claim to seek justice forthe  violations of human rights under the dictator's reign are actually seeking revenge. When I got my first pay, it was for fourteen days, because I had joined my job on the sixteenth of the month. The pay was not much, still I wanted to give something to those close to me out of the income I had first earned. To a cousin, I bought and gave a large poster of Madonna (the Marilyn Monroe look). We were not sex-driven, she just looked so beautiful. I don't know what the world is getting to, mass murder is okay, but lust is bad.

Statistics is scary, you can't really trust them, but they are intriguing, aren't they? In a CBS Poll, it has been found that more than 48 percent of the Americans believe in ghosts... 56 percent of the women believe this, only 38 percent of men do. Though, in all, only 22 percent of Americans claim they have actually seen ghosts.

"Don't mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive)- use a different color." - Good Mental Health Rocks kit, distributed in Queensland state. Apparently they are concerned that 14 per cent of Australian children and adolescents suffer from some sort of illness, and would like to do something for them.

The ego is a barrier to receptivity. "There is this story about the son of Ved Vyas. He wanted to be trained by Raja Janak, a wise king. Ved Vyas requested Raja Janak to take his son, Sukh, under his tutelage. Raja Janak asked him to send his son over. Sukh arrived at the appointed hour outside Raja Janak’s study and knocked at his door. "Who is it?" Janak asked. Sukh replied, "Main Sukh (I am Sukh)." Janak didn’t open the door. Sukh knocked again. "Who is it?" Main Sukh. Janak didn’t open the door. This was repeated many times till Sukh was tired of knocking and waiting. Suddenly, a realisation dawned on him. He knocked again. Janak said, "Who is it?" This time Sukh replies, "Sukh." Janak opened the door. Sukh realised that as long as he had the "I", Janak did not wish to take him as his student. -Pavan Choudary