Top 12 Varanasi Quotes & Sayings

All action is prayer. All trees are desire-fulfilli ng. All water is the Ganga. All land is Varanasi. Love everything.

I grew up at Kabir Choura in Varanasi in the 1970s. It was an era when communal riots used to happen every now and then at different places.

When I came to Delhi first and said, "This is not India. And then I was taken to Varanasi and there I loved, loved the culture. It was a beautiful journey. The way the people dressed - even the poorest people, and the fabrics! With vegetable dyes, and I was fascinated by the color. But in the end I loved the men - all in white - so many shades of white. And I said, "What am I going to do? A color collection or a white collection?" I finally did a neutral white collection.

Before moving to Delhi at the age of 17, I had only travelled to Patna or Varanasi outside Belwa.

In this land of the Ganga (Varanasi), there was education of culture. But, more importantly, there was a culture of education.

Nothing gives us greater pride than the importance of India's scientific and engineering colleges, or the army of Indian scientists at organizations such as Microsoft and NASA. Our temples are not the god-encrusted shrines of Varanasi, but Western scientific institutions like Caltech and MIT, and magazines like 'Nature' and 'Scientific American.

Once I was in Varanasi, a man in his mid 40s came to meet me from Jalandhar. He touched my feet and asked for blessings. I was stunned. I picked him and hugged him. He said he is blessed now. I think that was the most memorable moment in my life.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

I come from Varanasi. Abuses, profanities and threats don't bother me. I am 6-foot-tall guy and I can take care of myself.

My first intellectual challenge was to try to understand this incredible city of Banaras (also called Varanasi) in India and its meaning for Hindus. That was the place I lived for the first year I was in India and I've been back many times. It's a kind of home to me.

I grew up in Varanasi where there would be a communal riot every other week. Then I moved to Aligarh, where the Muslims made me feel completely at home. They never made me feel different, so when did this business of 'them' and 'us' start?

Bombay as a confident, welcoming city that takes in a million new people a year, that those who want to harm the country pick Bombay. Other Indian cities, such as Delhi and Varanasi, have also been bombed recently, but Bombay's significance as the financial capital of the country means that it's the best target for terrorists who're unhappy with India's progress.