“Translation:In a letter, all we own is the address on the envelope. The contents are a matter of fate.”

Alternate translation: Ultimately, it may be our name on the envelope, but someone else (God) is the one who wrote the message.
Pu La had a penchant for ending his humourous works with thought-provoking punchlines. In this quote from his work Post Office, he sums up on how life is a lot like the the letters that pass through the post office.
From his various literature

Original

शेवटी काय हो, आपण पत्त्याच्या नावाचे धनी, मजकुराचा मालक निराळाच.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update March 27, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Translation:In a letter, all we own is the address on the envelope. The contents are a matter of fate." by P. L. Deshpande?
P. L. Deshpande photo
P. L. Deshpande 7
Marathi writer, humourist, actor, dramatist 1919–2000

Related quotes

Nick Herbert photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.”

VIII, 50
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII
Context: The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.

Josh Billings photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge photo

“Let each of us hear this letter with the conviction that it is addressed especially to him; let him say in his heart, All this is for me.”

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister

Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 3

“The fact that Councillor Wong-Tam published the letter’s return address rather than wait for police to review the matter, makes me suspect that either she is complicit in the hoax, or she saw an opportunity to use it for political theatre.”

James Sears (1963) Canadian pickup artist, physician, politician and National Socialist

19 April 2017 https://torontoist.com/2017/04/controversial-publisher-ward-news-send-homophobic-hate-mail-councillor-wong-tam/

Ring Lardner photo

“A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.”

Ring Lardner (1885–1933) Sportswriter, short story writer

Preface http://books.google.com/books?id=U_xaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+good+many+young+writers+make+the+mistake+of+enclosing+a+stamped+self-addressed+envelope+big+enough+for+the+manuscript+to+come+back+in+This+is+too+much+of+a+temptation+to+the+editor%22&pg=PAx#v=onepage to How to Write Short Stories (1924)

Ronald Reagan photo

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

The third and fourth sentences are a paraphrase of a sentence by G. K. Chesterton: "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." Generally Speaking, "On Holland' (1928).
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.

Related topics