South Asia Quotes

• The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.

  J. William Fulbright

  Feelings, Excess, Asia

  J. William Fulbright (2011). “The Arrogance of Power”, p.32, Random House

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• Now a cholera epidemic was sweeping through Southeast Asia and south Asia in the early 1970s, so I started medical school and I joined a laboratory to work on this.

  Peter Agre

  School, Epidemics, Asia

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• Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Real, Childhood, Way

  "Chef Anthony Bourdain". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. June 18, 2010.

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• In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. But we did not lose Southeast Asia.

  William Westmoreland

  Military, Asia, Communist

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• Let us together commence a journey of peace, harmony and progress in South Asia.

  Atal Bihari Vajpayee

  Journey, Progress, Together

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• In Southeast Asia the world is understood to be a vast, complex network of interdependent relationships. So when global capitalism makes it impossible for small-time rice farmers to feed their families and make a living, it is a natural thing for anyone in the family who can find an alternative source of income to do so.

  John Burdett

  Income, Alternatives, World

  "Bangkok 8". Book by John Burdett, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 2003.

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• Much of the economic decay of southeast Asia (as of many other parts of the world) is undoubtedly due to a heedless and shameful neglect of trees.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Tree, Decay, World

  E.F.SCHUMACHER (1973). “SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL”

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• For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind.’ As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.

  Carl Sagan

  Moon, Rocks, Humanity

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• I think there's really strong social stratification in South Asia.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Strong, Thinking, Asia

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• In London, Washington, and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food.

  Robert Zoellick

  Latin, Struggle, Paris

  "Boom Times for Criminal Syndicates" by Michael Klare, www.motherjones.com. April 6, 2009.

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• Thailand's economic development was driven by educational expansion. That has been a very dramatic factor, and South Asia had been pretty miserable in not learning from that experience.

  Amartya Sen

  Educational, Asia, Expansion

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Military, Government, Asia

  Interview With Zahid Hussain, newslinemagazine.com. July 2002.

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• Like everyone else in the world, I've been devastated by the loss and suffering of so many in South Asia....As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain that they are experiencing. We can all see that it's going to take a long time for those people to rebuild their lives, and they will need our help for years to come.

  Celine Dion

  Mother, Pain, Loss

  "Brad Pitt bars international journalists; Donald Trump's exes say 'no' to wedding invite; fifth time the charm for David Carradine?". Daily Dish, www.sfgate.com. January 13, 2005.

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• Birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global health agenda, and the victims of this paralysis are the people of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

  Melinda Gates

  People, Birth Control, Agendas

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• South Korea from a country that had relatively little primary education became close to universal literacy in the course of 25, 30 years, in a way trying to replicate what Japan had done earlier. They were learning to some extent from the Japanese experience too. So I think, in a sense, the East Asians were following a path, which all other countries including South Asia could follow but chose not too.

  Amartya Sen

  Country, Thinking, Korea

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The higher education has always appealed to the South Asian social leaders across all the countries in South Asia. But primary education has been neglected. The oddity, by the way, is if you look at the contrast in India, there are some areas like Kerala where there's a long history of educational development.

  Amartya Sen

  Country, Educational, Oddities

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• There may be countries [where] there's no gender inequality in schooling, even in higher education, but [where there is] gender inequality in high business. Japan is a very good example of that. You might find cases in the United States where at one level women's equality has progressed tremendously. You don't have the kind of problem of higher women's mortality as you see in South Asia, North Africa, and East Asia, China, too, and yet for American women there are some fields in which equality hasn't yet come.

  Amartya Sen

  Country, Japan, United States

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• We have reiterated on many occasions that China wishes to establish and develop long-term, good-neighbourly and friendly relations with all countries in south Asia.

  Li Peng

  Country, Long, Wish

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• There was great political uncertainty in South Asia at the time of the Buddha. The older small tribal societies were cracking up and gave way to bigger states. There was much more trade and travel going on than before. To people in the cities the experience of living in a small place where you knew everyone and governed your affairs by consensual democracy had been lost.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Cities, People, Political

  "'The Buddha' & the End of Human Suffering / Pankaj Mishra in Kathmandu, Nepal". Interview with Felix Holmgren, The Liberator Magazine, Volume 7.2, Issue 22, www.livefromplanetearth.org. 2008.

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• We've got this arc of instability from North Africa to South Asia, and we have to pay close attention to it. And we have to build coalitions, something that I did to take on the Iranian nuclear program, and what I will do as president to make sure that we defeat these terrorist networks.

  Hillary Clinton

  President, Nuclear, Attention

  Hillary Clinton's speech at the Clinton-Sanders Democratic presidential debate in Durham, New Hampshire, hosted by MSNBC, www.nytimes.com. February 4, 2016.

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• I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

  William J. Clinton

  Country, Grateful, Earthquakes

  "Transcript: Bill Clinton's Democratic Convention Speech". abcnews.go.com. September 5, 2012.

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• The Taliban has a huge leadership problem at a critical political moment, another caliph has announced himself to the world, and the Taliban has been silent. And that is getting noticed by militants across South Asia.

  Graeme Smith

  Leadership, Political, World

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• Rural communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America are where the majority of hungry people are and the inequality that exists between women and men in these communities is holding back progress. These women have a very tough time, so much is expected of them.

  Dionne Warwick

  Latin, Men, America

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• We would be doing the children of South Asia a great disservice if we allowed ourselves to believe that the need of children to belong to a loving, permanent family was washed away by the waves of the tsunami

  Mary Landrieu

  Children, Believe, Would Be

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• I had siblings from South Asia, from East Asia, from depressed communities around America, and you know, we'd have long conversations.

  Ronan Farrow

  Sibling, America, Long

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