Top 14 Quotes & Sayings by Devdutt Pattanaik

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Indian author Devdutt Pattanaik.

Last updated on April 14, 2025.

Devdutt Pattanaik is a mythologist, from Mumbai, India. He is also a speaker, illustrator and author, on Hindu sacred lore, legends, folklore, fables and parables. His work focuses largely on the areas of religion, mythology, and management. He has written books on the relevance of sacred stories, symbols and rituals in modern times; his more popular books include Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology; Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata; and Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana and My Gita. Pattanaik has incorporated the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into human resource management.

Indian - Author | Born: December 11, 1970

Source: Wikipedia

Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them?

Devdutt Pattanaik

In Greek mythology, the hero wants to be great, but the very concept does not exist in the Indian vocabulary. Yet it has become the global template. And it's a template that won't fit in India.

Devdutt Pattanaik

If you don't have imagination, you stop being human; animals don't have imagination; Alzheimer's is the death of imagination.

Devdutt Pattanaik

I have been doodling since childhood. I have a passion for illustrating but cannot paint or colour for that matter. I illustrate what I am trying to communicate through my writing. My images are like drawings in a science text book.

Devdutt Pattanaik

Mythology is a vast body of knowledge that has not been tapped.

Devdutt Pattanaik

I write on sacred stories, symbols and rituals of all cultures - European, American and Chinese - but my audiences, typically, like me to focus on India.

Devdutt Pattanaik

In India, the eldest has the most responsibility and the crown goes to him. The crown could go to a person with the most talent. But how could 'most talent' be determined? So Indian society settled on age.

Devdutt Pattanaik

Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way.

Devdutt Pattanaik

Nobody knows why we're alive; so we all create stories based on our imagination of the world; and as a community, we believe in the same story. In India, every person believes his/ her own mythosphere to be real. Indian thought is obsessed with subjectivity; Greek thought with objectivity.

Devdutt Pattanaik

Neither death nor wisdom has a full stop. There are only commas-no destinations, only waiting rooms.

Devdutt Pattanaik

There is no such thing as an objective interpretation.

Devdutt Pattanaik

The crown could go to a person with the most talent. But how could ‘most talent’ be determined? So Indian society settled on age.

Devdutt Pattanaik

Within infinite myths lies the Eternal Truth Who sees it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes Indra, a hundred And I, only two

Devdutt Pattanaik

Refusal to accept the flow of the world is the root of all misery.

Devdutt Pattanaik