70+ Arundhati Roy Quotes | Minimalist Quotes

Human rights are fundamental rights, they are the minimum, the very least we demand. Too often, they become the goal itself. What should be the minimum becomes the maximum – all we are supposed to expect – but human rights aren’t enough. The goal is, and must always be, justice.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Demand Enough Expectation Fundamental Human Justice Right
As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I’ve spent my whole life fighting tradition. There’s no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Career Fight Grow Up Job Life Myself Tradition Woman
Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Chance Empathy Fight Important Peace Quality
To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Future Live Ourselves Past People Practice Thinking
Some things come with their own punishments.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Karma One Liner Punishment Reality Wisdom
Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Acceptance Change
Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Clothes Color Death Government Kind Mindset Nation Oneself People
Even capitalists must surely admit, that intellectually at least, socialism is a worthy opponent. It imparts intelligence even to its adversaries.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Intellectual Intelligence Worth
Money need not be our only reward.
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Money Need One Liner Ourselves Reward
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Break History Ideas Need Power Remember Revolution War Weapon
Many people have accused me of having a romantic view, whereas I personally I feel sorry for those who have lost romance in their lives.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Feeling Life Live People Romantic Sorry View
I feel ashamed that the new, nuclear, neo-liberal India thinks of itself as a ‘natural ally’ of Israel. Ever since India began to call itself an emerging superpower, it has become a slavish, groveling satellite state of the US.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Feeling Shame Slave Thinking
The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Money Politics Reaction Reality Reason Resistance Scare
What came for them? Not death. Just the end of living.
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Death End Live Perspective
The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dreams Human Ideas Justice Language Responsibilty Revolution Right
Is globalization about ‘the eradication of world poverty,’ or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?
ARUNDHATI ROY

Control Digital Poor World
If you’re happy in a dream, does that count?
ARUNDHATI ROY

Count Dreams Happiness
He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Fear Hairs Hands Himself Love Relationship Rose
Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Difference One Liner Sick Terrorism
Anything’s possible in Human Nature …Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Hope Human Joy Love Mad Nature Possible
Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Beautiful Change Deep Destruction Inspirational
The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Important One Liner Worth
Ever since the Great Depression, we know that one of the key ways in which the US economy has stimulated growth is by manufacturing weapons and exporting war to other countries.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Country Depression Greatness Growth Key Way Weapon
The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government’s policies, that are so hated.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Government Hate People Politics
There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.
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Deep Force Ignorance Silence Voice
When people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Moral Myself People Reaction
Every people, every society, needs a culture of resistance, a culture of being difficult and disobedient, that is the only way they will ever be able to stand up to the inevitable abuse of power by whoever runs the state apparatus, the capitalists, the communists, the socialists, the Gandhians, whoever.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Culture Difficult Injustice Need People Power Resistance Society

Arundhati Roy Quotes

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