Lanka Quotes

Learning without understanding will make your vision of knowledge weak ~ Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka

I love to travel with my family or my two best friends because I completely trust them. I forced my two best friends into learning to scuba dive with me in Sri Lanka - it was amazing but also hideous because we were learning in very difficult seas. ~ Julia Sawalha

The fact that television and tourism have made the whole world accessible has created the illusion that we enjoy intimate knowledge of other places, when we barely scratch their surface. For the vast majority, the knowledge of Thailand or Sri Lanka acquired through tourism consists of little more than the whereabouts of the beach. ~ Martin Jacques

I was shot at for being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, and then, everyone was calling me a Paki in London, and I'm not even Pakistani. ~ M.I.A.

Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka. ~ Alexander Cockburn

Whether we live in Sri Lanka or Malaysia or India, the U.K. or the U.S., we face similar issues of understanding, remembering the past that has made us and seeing the future we want. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

You don't sell the product, you sell the philosophy. When you sell a product, you have customers, when you sell a philosophy, you have believers. ~ Soumeet Lanka

It wasn't like I came to Sri Lanka to marry a Sri Lankan. It just happened." Jessica ~ Angela Nicoara

For the jungle dissolves and recreates over and over and over again, as the Hindu philosophers perceived millenniums ago and built their religion on it. All that we know of things that died more anciently than a month ago, is written in stone or brick or earthwork, or, perhaps more durable even than these, in legend. ~ John Still

When did an old white guy yelling at me, telling me what to think become news? What gives him the right to tell me what to think? When was the last time he was in Iraq or Afghanistan or Sri Lanka ... or anywhere that didn't have a beach? ~ Lisa Ling

Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. This is the yoke from which we are being set free. And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatemala, Liberia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated. Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics
they too need to be liberated from the empire's yoke of slavery. Their liberation is tangled up with our own. ~ Shane Claiborne

As of the second decade in the twenty-first century, nearly all acts of terror around the world (as opposed to acts of terror confined to one country, as in the case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka) have been committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. Of course the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But this frequently noted fact is meaningless. ~ Dennis Prager

My writing has been shaped by the three countries - Sri Lanka, the Philippines and England - I have lived in. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

Live your life according to your income and you will find treasure ~ Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka

I want to see a thousand tiny places, smell their flowers, and taste the sauces made by their people. I want to feel the difference between the textures of grit in Sri Lanka and Morocco. I want to meet the woman who bakes the best bread i n the smallest town in New Zealand. I want to find the best vantage point to see Bosnia from Croatia. What do the Grand Marnier crepes taste like in Rouen? In Paris? There are untold numbers of tiny places and extraordinary people who occupy them. We will perhaps see a hundred of both. ~ Tsh Oxenreider

Today I prayed for Boston, for America, my home away from home. Today, I realized how lucky we Sri Lankans are to have peace in our country. How I feel today, hearing of the bombs going off in the city brings back memories of how I used to feel four years ago in Sri Lanka when the LTTE was setting off bombs all around Colombo. That feeling I used to get when I hear about a bomb blast, the goosebumps, the school evacuation drills, the breaking news footage, and most of all, that fear we Sri Lankans used to feel, every second of everyday, it all came back to me today. Thank you God for bringing peace to my country, look after America the way you did Sri Lanka. ~ Thisuri Wanniarachchi

And the truth is that I'm not, Ed, is what I wanted to tell you. I'm not arty like everyone says who doesn't know me, I don't paint, I can't draw, I play no instrument, I can't sing. I'm not in plays, I wanted to say, I don't write poems. I can't dance except tipsy at dances. I'm not athletic, I'm not a goth or a cheerleader, I'm not treasurer or co-captain. I'm not gay and out and proud, I'm not that kid from Sri Lanka, not a triplet, a prep, a drunk, a genius, a hippie, a Christian, a slut, not even one of those super-Jewish girls with a yarmulke gang wishing everyone a happy Sukkoth. I'm not anything, this is what I realized ... I like movies, everyone knows I do
I love them
but I will never be in charge of one because my ideas are stupid and wrong in my head. There's nothing different about that, nothing fascinating, interesting, worth looking at. ~ Daniel Handler

An economically peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka is the dream of youth of the nation. My message for the youth is to collectively work for an inclusively developed Sri Lanka. ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I'm a doer, and whether it was the tsunami in Sri Lanka or the earthquake in Indonesia, I was always saying, I should be there; I should be helping out. ~ Paul Walker

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries. ~ Michael Ondaatje

Today in Sri Lanka, Pope Francis visited a Buddhist temple. When asked why, the Pope said, 'Just keeping my options open. It's a dicey job market. You never know.' ~ Conan O'Brien

After surviving the tsunami in Sri Lanka and facing that moment where I was not sure if I would live to see the next, I learned all that matters is now. ~ Rosie Fellner

The Gita is the greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Monotony kills the heart. Ironically, monotony is what keeps the heart working. ~ Soumeet Lanka

There is only one right way to eat a steak - with greed in your heart and a smile on your face. ~ Soumeet Lanka

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes. ~ Michael Ondaatje

Serendipity is another word in the luck family. Invented by Horace Walpole in 1754, it appropriately began life as a misprint. Walpole wrote a letter to Horace Mann developing the idea of serendipity from a 'silly fairytale' about chance called The Three Princes of Serendip. But Walpole had made a mistake: the real title of the story was The Three Princes of Sarendip (the ancient name for Sri Lanka). Before its current fashionable ~ Ed Smith

India is the meeting place of the religions and among these Hinduism alone is by itself a vast and complex thing, not so much a religion as a great diversified and yet subtly unified mass of spiritual thought, realization and aspiration. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Sri Lanka is a part of my background: it's not where I live, but it's what I want to explore. And I find it works very well to explore through fiction. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

A few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

War crimes, you say?

No matter how many policies you put on paper, in reality, there are no rights and wrongs in war. War itself is a crime. War cannot be justified.

I believe, the only people, in this world, whose opinions matter, are the ones who go the extra mile to help other people expecting nothing in return.

Soldiers who fight fiercely for their country, the doctors in Sri Lanka's public hospitals attending to hundreds of patients at a time for no extra pay , the nuns who voluntarily teach English and math to children of refugee camps in the north, the monks who collect food to feed entire villages during crises, they are the people worth listening to, their opinion matters.

So find me one of them who will say: they wish the war didn't end in 2009, that they wish Sri Lanka was divided into two parts. Find me one of them who agrees with the international war crime allegations against Sri Lanka, and I will listen.

But I will not listen to the opinions of those who are paid to find faults in a war they were never a part of, a war they never experienced themselves. I will not listen to the opinions of those who watched the war on tv or read about it on the internet or were moved by a documentary on Al Jazeera.

The war is over. The damage is done. Let Sri Lanka move on. So our children will never have to see what we've seen. ~ Thisuri Wanniarachchi

Reconciliation without truth is nothing but a smokescreen ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. ~ Sri Aurobindo

The light house is there to guide direction to all the sailing ships to reach their port safely, so God is always there for us to guide to reach our goals wishes and highest destinations.
Do not lose your faith for anyone'. ~ Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka

Others with names like myths, names like puzzles, names we had never heard before: Virgilio, Balamugunthan, Faheem, Abdulrahman, Aziz, Baako, Dae-Hyun, Ousmane, Kimatsu. When it was hard to say the many strange names, we called them by their countries.
So how on earth do you do this, Sri Lanka?
Mexico, are you coming or what?
Is it really true you sold a kidney to come to America, India?
Guys, just give Tshaka Zulu a break, the guy is old, I'm just saying.
We know you despise this job, Sudan, but deal with it, man.
Come, Ethiopia, move, move, move; Israel, Kazakhstn, Niger, brothers, let's go! ~ NoViolet Bulawayo

Without mutual tolerance emerging as the foundation, terrible situations like those of Tibet and Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Rwanda, can never be effectively improved. ~ Dalai Lama

I discovered that Thailand was one of those countries, like Sri Lanka and India, where memory of past lives used to be commonplace. Go back a few generations, and you find people talking about earlier lives with total certainty. ~ John Burdett

Everywhere I go - from villages outside Kandy, Sri Lanka, to community centers in Amman, Jordan, to offices at the State Department in Washington, D.C. - I find people with a similar story. When thousands of people discover that their story is also someone else's story, they have the chance to write a new story together. ~ Eboo Patel

I think the rule should be that if we're going to take actions overseas that result in the deaths of people, the United States should take responsibility for that. ~ John O. Brennan

The Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka, knows exactly how the political bluff works and uses it to spread lies among the people. What he has done to this country is assassinate the dignity and respect of good citizens while centralising everything into himself and his family members. His ego may lead him to think that it will last forever so to keep his dream alive he will not hesitate to eliminate the person who questions this. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

I am deeply concerned that Sri Lanka, despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction. ~ Navi Pillay

I don't know what being god must feel like, but it can't be much different that being an inventor.
There is power in the idea that a certain product never existed before you thought of it, there is joy in the act of bringing the idea into reality and there is contentment in seeing the product come to life when it is being used. ~ Soumeet Lanka

Retiring from cricket is not about form. I feel that the time is now and it's right. I've tried to give everything I have when I've played the game, the game goes on. You can't hold onto it and people shouldn't be too sentimental. I think a lot better players and greater players have gone, and the game has gone on and there are new players who take the mantle, and in my case it won't be any different. ~ Kumar Sangakkara

She saw the myriad gods, and beyond God his own ineffable eternity; she saw that there were ranges of life beyond our present life, ranges of mind beyond our present mind and above these she saw the splendors of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo

In Sri Lanka, the people you lived amongst, the people you went to school with, the people in whose houses you ate, whose jokes you shared: these were not the people you married. Quite possibly they were not your religion. More to the point they were probably not your caste. This word with its fearsome connotations was never, hardly ever used. But it was ever present: it muddied the waters of Sri Lanka's politics, it perfumed the air of her bed-chambers; it lurked, like a particularly noxious relative, behind the poruwa of every wedding ceremony. It was the c-word. People used its synonym, its acronym, its antonym-indeed any other nym that came to mind - in the vain hope its meaning would somehow go away. It didn't. But if the people you chose to associate with were the very ones you could not marry, then the ones you did marry were quite often people you wouldn't dream of associating with if you had any choice in the matter. ~ Ashok Ferrey

. 'A pain in your heart can not be seen by others so let your silent suffering be an example for others to follow'

Ravi Sathasivam ~ Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka

Even in Sri Lanka, the worst only happened in my imagination, I'd say, and this is so because we live on a planet where good people outnumber bad. ~ Tania Aebi

A well-told lie is worth a thousand facts ~ Michael Ondaatje

Strange to wake-up this morning as a former ODI cricketer, but it's been a great honour and privilege playing for Sri Lanka during the past 15 years. At the end of the day, I am very fortunate to have enjoyed a long career playing with and against some great players. Thanks for all the encouragement and support over the years. ~ Kumar Sangakkara

I am not a religious person myself, but I did look for nature. I had spent my first sabbatical in New York City. Looked for something different for the second one. Europe and the U.S. didn't really feel enticing because I knew them too well. So Asia it was. The most beautiful landscapes I had seen in Asia were Sri Lanka and Bali. ~ Stefan Sagmeister

Sri Lanka is an island that everyone loves at some level inside themselves. A very special island that travellers, from Sinbad to Marco Polo, dreamed about. A place where the contours of the land itself forms a kind of sinewy poetry. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

We should not play like Australia or India or England - we should play like Sri Lanka. ~ Mahela Jayawardene

True, the US Government does not have moral authority to ask for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that occurred in final stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka. This is so not just because of what they have done in Sri Lanka, but what they do all around the world. Certainly, the US enhanced their assistance in many ways during last decades to fight against the Tamil Tiger rebels. But does the Government of Sri Lanka have moral authority to deny an international investigation? The answer is no. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being. ~ Sri Chinmoy

I realised in Sri Lanka that my dream of playing in a World Cup was a bridge too far, ~ Jacques Kallis

We've made three World T20 finals and won one - that's not by power-hitting. We've beaten the power-hitting sides quite easily and convincingly in all of those tournaments. ~ Kumar Sangakkara

India saw from the beginning, and, even in her ages of reason and her age of increasing ignorance, she never lost hold of the insight, that life cannot be rightly seen in the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the sole power of its externalities. ~ Sri Aurobindo

But he knew he'd started reading books on Sri Lanka, because he needed to explain things, to himself and others -- because if that world, his world over there had ever made sense, it seemed far more confused when questioned from outside. ~ Pradeep Jeganathan

There are over six thousand languages in India, as per one estimate. At home, my driver speaks three: Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. I speak three languages: Hindi, English and bad. The home nurse (caring for my MIL) speaks Malayalam. The maid speaks gibberish. And, my husband does not speak. So, by the time we get a simple task executed, for instance, 'Get some salt', one can take a short trip to Sri Lanka, learn Sinhalese and come back. ~ Rachna Singh

Sri Lanka is a beautiful little island nation parked perilously close to India; a little too hot, a little too humid, and perhaps too expensive, but to its credit are fantastic beaches, strangely melancholy hills, and the ruins of kingdoms past. ~ Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

I've noticed that the more flooding there is, the more bullshit gets talked. I mean it was very noticeable in the Asian tsumai. It happened around Christmas-New Year. The Muslims of Sri Lanka said 'We knew this would happen because the Christians were using alcohol for their Christmas celebrations.' The Buddhists said 'We knew this would happen because of the horrible Muslim slaughter practices.' It's amazing to see how apocalypse or catastrophe makes people behave primitively. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Repertitious has not had nearly the success in entering the language that serendipitous has had, most likely because its PR team isn't nearly as good. The noun form of the latter, serendipity, was made up in the 1750s by the novelist Horace Walpole, based on Serendip (a former name for Sri Lanka). Repertitious, on the other hand, has its first mention in Thomas Blount's dictionary of 1656. Writers - 1, lexicographers - 0. Resentient ~ Ammon Shea

Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo

He who loves, never grows old. God it a shining example. ~ Sri Chinmoy

If u come to Sri Lanka you will find that DHONI has more fans than any other Srilankan player. ~ Arjuna Ranatunga

Will there be people who will have the conscience to contribute to the country by changing themselves first? That is the need of the moment. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

How fair is it to judge a person based on his sexual preferences, or their 'otherness'? As long as a person is not 'harmful' for others or not violating the rights of others, I think we need not be bothered about their personal lives, whom they love or whom they marry. It is a personal choice. I think the most important thing about a person is his or her 'humanity', kindness, selflessness not their 'sex life' (only as long as he or she is not violating the rights of others or causing harm to others).
It is entirely a disgrace on humanity to 'discriminate' a person solely based on their 'otherness'.
I am surprised to see how the society stands against or make fun out of 'gay' people, who are totally harmless, ignoring the 'human' in them, but feel 'OK' with 'rapists', 'sex maniacs', 'prostitution' and 'sexual violence against women and children' occurring in Sri Lanka every day. ~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

If the Republic of China, is going to move forward with their noble idea of making Sri Lanka a Shipping Hub, then the country must focus on eliminating corrupting bugs in the bed. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others. ~ Sri Aurobindo

I took a 51 day trip through Asia; 12 countries and 26 cities. I traveled for 51 days. So, it was everywhere from Sri Lanka and that all the way to Japan, where we ended it. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

International awareness of his deceptive practices is the reflection of the frustration that is prevailing in Sri Lanka which the President is trying to undermine by the traditional emotive and hate mongering politics. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Sri Lanka is a small island, and the war affected everybody. Everybody knew somebody who was killing or being killed. ~ Ru Freeman

Dream with your words, make love with your pen
And create an art of poetry with your soul". ~ Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka

Existence is governed by its own law. Here, the things impermanent by nature
are bound to meet their end. Hence, with the passage of time, not only Ravana's
Lanka but "Krishna's" Dwarka also sinks. ~ Deep Trivedi

Complete and total perfection will come about only when we feel that our perfection is no perfections as long as the rest of humanity remains imperfect. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long. ~ M.I.A.

Life in this form is one-time chance, death is the inevitable consequence for anyone who is born. The record of one's death is the primary respect one could render to the lost one. Tears of all relatives of missing people are indeed flowing due to this invaluable action by the authority. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

In Sri Lanka, when two strangers meet, they ask a series of questions that reveal family, ancestral village, and blood ties until they arrive at a common friend or relative. Then they say, "Those are our people, so you are our people." It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone.

"But in America, there are no such namings; it is possible to slip and slide here. It is possible to get lost in the nameless multitudes. There are no ropes binding one, holding one to the earth. Unbound by place or name, one is aware that it is possible to drift out into the atmosphere and beyond that, into the solitary darkness where there is no oxygen. ~ Nayomi Munaweera

I make a distinction between Buddhism with a Capital 'B' and buddhism with a small 'b'. Sri Lanka has the former, in which the state uses Buddhism as an instrument of power, so there are even Buddhists monks who say the Tamils should be eliminated. Thai Buddhists are not perfect either. Some Thai Buddhist monks have compromised with the kind and possess cars and other luxuries. In many Buddhist countries, the emphasis is on being goody-goody, which is not good enough. I am for buddhism with a small 'b' which is non-violent, practical and aims to eliminate the cause of suffering.. ~ Sulak Sivaraksa

Your life is your own lesson. Right or wrong you have to deal with it by yourself."

Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka
All rights are reserved @ 2018 - Ravi Sathasivam ~ Ravi Sathaivam / Sri Lanka

I'm just so grateful for the 10 years that I had in Sri Lanka when it was in the middle of a war and I was getting shot at, because now and again I remember glimpses of those times, and I just go, 'Wow, I'll never, ever see that again in my life. And I'm never gonna feel that, and I'm never gonna feel for a human being like that.' ~ M.I.A.