“The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.”

“I say if your fear of criticism is stronger than your desire for success, you've failed in thought, long before action.”

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”

“Brahmins cannot hope to claim a high and superior status forever. Times are changing. They have to come down. Then only they could survive with dignity. Otherwise they will one day be forfeiting their high status. It will not be by force. It will be just laws of the land and the people.”

“The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.”

“But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.”

“Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.”

“The status quo is not good for the ordinary Fijians. It is good for the elites in society but not for the ordinary Fijians. This is why you have not seen the ordinary Fijians progress much in the last 35 years since independence. It needs a change in policy and strategies for the development of the grassroots Fijian people.”

“It's pitiful to have a life in which junk food is awarded the same high status as sex.”

“The garden where you sit
Has never a need of flowers,
For you are the blossoms
And only a fool or the blind
Would fail to know it”