Important Quotes for Essay

Quotes are one of the important segments for UPSC Mains general studies and essay writing.
But, selecting the type of quotes for particular is more important than remembering the bulk.

Writing quotes by celebrities, authors, and famous personalities for the issues like Peace,
Justice, Materialism, Consumerism, Democracy, and Science Vs. Religion will support your
answer and helps the examiner to judge your understanding of the topic.

Famous Quotes for Essay Writing on Issue-based Categories

One of the most common categories for essay writing in the UPSC Exam is the issues in
society. Issues like Education, Science vs. Religion, Corruption, Peace, Caste, and related
topics are more likely to be asked in the exam.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it” -
Aristotle is one of the most notable quotes on Education. Below are some other famous quotes
for essay writing on Issue-based categories-
Important Quote Philosopher/Personality
issues

Education To educate a person in mind and not in morals is Theodore Roosevelt

to educate a menace to society.

Education It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to Aristotle

entertain a thought without accepting it.

Education Education is the most powerful weapon you can Mandela

use to change the world

Science vs. Science without religion is lame, and Religion Einstein

Religion without Science is blind

Science vs. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual Martin Luther King
Religion power. We have guided missiles and misguided
men

Science vs. All thinking men are atheists. Ernest Hemingway

Religion

Democracy The price good men pay for indifference to public Plato
affairs is to be ruled by evil men

Democracy I understand democracy as something that gives Mahatma Gandhi

the weak the same chance as the strong
 Democracy The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so Montesquieu
much dangerous to the public welfare as the
apathy of a citizen in a democracy

Peace Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin Eisenhower

Peace When the power of love overcomes the love of William Gladstone
power, the world will know peace

Corruption Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you Abraham Lincoln
want to test a man’s character, give him power

Corruption Righteousness is the foundation stone of peace Confucius

and good governance

Caste The caste system is opposed to the Religion of Swami Vivekananda

the Vedanta. Caste is a social custom, and all our
great preachers have tried to break it down

Free Speech I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll Voltaire
defend to the death your right to say it

Famous Quotes for Essay Writing by Famous Authors and

Personalities
The famous quotes by the famous authors, philosophers, or personalities are stated below-
• Quotes by B.R. Ambedkar-
• Quotes by Thomas A Edison- When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember
this – you haven’t.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to
try just one more time.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.
I never did a day’s work in my life, it was all fun.
Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.
The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the
primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops
through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise for the body and brain. The trouble with
our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a
mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or
reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.
• Quotes by Plato- The beginning is the most important part of the work.
The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.
Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
• Quotes by Tagore- You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
• Quotes by Bertrand Russell-

• Quotes by Immanuel Kant- Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but
always at the same time as an end.
• Quotes by Socrates- There is only one good, knowledge and one evil ignorance.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Know thyself.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would
like to have.
 By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one,
you’ll become a philosopher.
• Quotes by Mark Twain- The man who does not read has no advantage over the man
who cannot read.
The best way to cheer up yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear, and the blind can see.
God created war so that Americans would learn Geography.
I do not fear death, I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born,
and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
Classic – a book people praise but don’t learn.
• Quotes by Martin Luther King- Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful
tomorrow.
We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.
There comes a time when silence is betrayal.
The time is always right to do the right thing.
A right delayed is a right denied.
Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live
• Quotes by Thomas Jefferson-

• Quotes by H. Jackson Brown Jr.- Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have
exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur,
Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert
Einstein.
• Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi- God has no religion.
A man is the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
The future depends on what you do today.
 Poverty is the worst form of violence.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
• Quotes by John F. Kennedy- We need men who can dream of things that never were.
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
To those whom much is given, much is expected.
One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
A journey of Thousand miles begins with one step.
A child miseducated is a child lost.
• Quotes by Leo Tolstoy- A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and
whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller
the fraction.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
To get rid of an enemy, one must love him.
Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
• Quotes by Thomas Paine-

• Quotes by Franklin Roosevelt- The test of our progress is not whether we add more to
the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who
have little.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
• Quotes by Henry David Thoreau- This world is but a canvas for our imagination.
Things do not change, we change.
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
• Quotes by Jeremy Bentham- “Rarest of all human quality is consistency.”
• Quotes by Gautam Buddha- However many holy words you read, however many you
speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?
Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.
Doubt everything. Find your own light.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything
simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply
because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on
the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have
been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you
find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one
and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.