“What greatness do I have that I have to tell anyone about? I live just like millions of people in this country; I am ordinary. My life is also ordinary. I am a poor school teacher suffering family travails. During my whole lifetime, I have been grinding away with the hope that I could become free of my sufferings. But I have not been able to free myself from suffering. What is so special about this life that needs to be told to anybody?”

—  Premchand

In Munshi Premchand:Biography, 10 December 2013, Internet Media Data Base http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695919/bio,

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 "What greatness do I have that I have to tell anyone about? I live just like millions of people in this country; I am or…" by Premchand?
Premchand photo
Premchand 15
Hindi writer 1880–1936

Related quotes

Ben Harper photo

“In my life I have been blessed
In my life I have been cursed
I have lived the best of times
I have suffered the worst
Do you know which road you're traveling?
Do you know where you want to be?
With so many roads to travel,
There's just one can set you free.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

One Road to Freedom.
Song lyrics, Fight for Your Mind (1995)

Tom Baker photo

“All my life I have felt myself to be on the edge of things. All my life I have suffered from bad dreams. All my life I have had difficulty in knowing whether I am awake or in a nightmare.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor
Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with a chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Thomas Mann photo

“I think of my suffering, of the problem of my suffering. What am I suffering from? From knowledge — is it going to destroy me? What am I suffering from? From sexuality — is it going to destroy me?”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Letter from Naples, Italy to Otto Grautoff (1896); as quoted in A Gorgon's Mask: The Mother in Thomas Mann's Fiction (2005) by Lewis A. Lawson, p. 34
Context: I think of my suffering, of the problem of my suffering. What am I suffering from? From knowledge — is it going to destroy me? What am I suffering from? From sexuality — is it going to destroy me? How I hate it, this knowledge which forces even art to join it! How I hate it, this sensuality, which claims everything fine and good is its consequence and effect. Alas, it is the poison that lurks in everything fine and good! — How am I to free myself of knowledge? By religion? How am I to free myself of sexuality? By eating rice?

Nelson Mandela photo

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1960s, I am Prepared to Die (1964)

Willa Cather photo

“I could bear to suffer… so many have suffered. But why must it be like this? I have not deserved it. I have been true in friendship; I have faithfully nursed others in sickness… Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 5
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Berthe Morisot photo

“I have descended to the depths of suffering, and it seems to me that after that one cannot help being raised up. But I have spent the last three nights weeping. Pity! Pity! Remembrance is the true imperishable life... I should like to live my life over again, to record it, to admit my weaknesses; no, this is useless; I have sinned, I have suffered, I have atoned for it. I could write only a bad novel by relating what has been related a thousand times.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Quote from Berthe's Morisot's letter, 1887 - after the death of her husband Eugène Manet
1881 - 1895

Chen Shui-bian photo

“I have to admit that I cannot lie to myself nor to anyone else. I cannot do what I am not able to do. I am not able to change the name of the country to the Republic of Taiwan during my presidency term, and the ex-president Lee Teng-hui also could not do it during his twelve-year as the president. I believe that even if he was the president now, he could still not be able to do it.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

During the video conference with some MPs of EU parliament, March 1, 2005
Pet Phrases, 2005

Marlon Brando photo

“I suppose the story of my life is a search for love, but more than that, I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

New York Times (July 2, 2004)

Nicolas Malebranche photo

“The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am — of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain — or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things … I have no idea whatever of my soul.”

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) philosopher

Dialogues on Metaphysics (1688) Dialogue III
Context: I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am — of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain — or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things … I have no idea whatever of my soul.

Related topics