“The city was still …. Soon the machinery would start working again, not out of any sense of purpose, but like a watch that is wound daily by someone’s hand. Almost without any choice in the matter, people would embark upon the minute frustrations and satisfactions of their daily lives. It was in this moment of postponement that the azaan was heard, neither announcing the day nor keeping it a secret.”

— Amit Chaudhuri

Freedom Song (1998)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The city was still …. Soon the machinery would start working again, not out of any sense of purpose, but like a watch t…" by Amit Chaudhuri?

Amit Chaudhuri 94

contemporary Indian-English novelist 1962

Related quotes

“Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Section 10
Culture Industry Reconsidered (1963)
Context: The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.

“The Speaker is seen, but not heard and the President is neither seen nor heard. He would very much would a President who is neither seen nor heard, but who decides. I would like to do something silently.”

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India

His statement on assuming office of President in: Dr. Janak Raj Jai "Presidents of India, 1950-2003", P.140

“Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stanza 1 (1906).
Puck of Pook's Hill 1906

“I didn't care. It was better to be a live coward than a dead madman. These people walking in and out of huge concrete buildings--someone should warn them. It would come again…Los Angeles was doomed. It was a city with a curse upon it.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

“Can I live a life, daily life, without sense of self-concern?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

4th Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland (25 July 1971)
1970s

“And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

“The time of day we choose for prayer doesn't matter, so long as we keep it faithfully. Prayer must be part of the rhythm of our daily lives.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

“It was neither healthy nor good when public stock exchanges introduced order types and speed advantages that high-frequency traders could use to exploit everyone else. This sort of inefficiency didn't vanish the moment it was spotted and acted upon. It was like a broken slot machine in the casino that pays off every time. It would keep paying off until someone said something about it; but no one who played the slot machine had any interest in pointing out that it was broken.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 233

“Faithful horoscope-watching, practiced daily, provides just the sort of small but warm and infinitely reassuring fillip that gets matters off to a spirited start.”

Shana Alexander (1925–2005) Journalist

A delicious appeal to unreason (2005) http://books.google.com/books?id=XVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=%22Faithful+horoscope-watching,+practiced+daily,+provides+just+the+sort+of+small+but+warm+and+infinitely+reassuring+fillip+that+gets+matters+off+to+a+spirited+start.%22&source=bl&ots=WlTZPOXd1a&sig=B7LI5-SEDOdMddoH_OQp3QlQMOE&hl=en&ei=EJY7TOSIK8XdnAfe-6XfAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22Faithful%20horoscope-watching%2C%20practiced%20daily%2C%20provides%20just%20the%20sort%20of%20small%20but%20warm%20and%20infinitely%20reassuring%20fillip%20that%20gets%20matters%20off%20to%20a%20spirited%20start.%22&f=false

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Amit Chaudhuri 94

Related quotes

Related topics