Lotus

Nelumbo nucifera, also known as sacred lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more often refers to members of the family Nymphaeaceae.

My philosophy is to use the stones hurled at me to make a bridge for myself; I believe in proving my critics wrong through my work. I keep saying, the more muck you throw at me, the brighter will the BJP lotus bloom. That is the nature of the lotus, it rises out of kīchaṛ (slush) to create exquisite beauty. ~ Narendra Modi

Quotes

• Oh! what are the brightest that e'er have blown
  To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's throne,
  Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf.
  • Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), Paradise and the Peri.

• Be like a lotus. Let the beauty of your heart speak. Be grateful to the mud, water, air and the light.
  • Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power (2012)

• Eyes pure and broad like the blue lotus;
  mind pure, steeped in meditations;
  for pure deeds long accumulated, boundless in fame,
  your quietude guides the assembly-thus we bow our heads.
  • Ratnākara to Buddha, in Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter I. As translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.
  • Pure and beautiful as a lotus leaf; pure are your intentions; you have reached the other shore of tranquility; you have accumulated good actions and conquered a great sea of virtues. Holy One, you lead to the path of peace, all homage to you!
    • Alternative translation in the multilingual edition of Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra at the Bibliotheca Polyglotta.

• My philosophy is to use the stones hurled at me to make a bridge for myself; I believe in proving my critics wrong through my work. I keep saying, the more muck you throw at me, the brighter will the BJP lotus bloom. That is the nature of the lotus, it rises out of keechhad (slush) to create exquisite beauty.
  • Narendra Modi in interview 2013, quoted from Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.164

• Sikander burnt all books the same wise as fire burns hay. All the scintillating works faced destruction in the same manner that lotus flowers face with the onset of frosty winter.
  • About Sikandar Butshikan. Srivara, Zaina Rajtarangini.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 463.

• Where drooping lotos-flowers, distilling balm,
  Dream by the drowsy streamlets sleep hath crown'd,
  While Care forgets to sigh, and Peace hath balsamed Pain.
  • Paul H. Hayne, Sonnet, Pent in this Common Sphere.

• The lotus flower is troubled
  At the sun's resplendent light;
  With sunken head and sadly
  She dreamily waits for the night.
  • Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs, lyrical interlude No. 10.

• Lotos, the name; divine, nectareous juice!
  • Homer, Odyssey, Book IX, line 106. Pope's translation.

• Stone lotus cups, with petals dipped in sand.
  • Jean Ingelow, Gladys and her Island, line 460.

• They wove the lotus band to deck
  And fan with pensile wreath their neck.
  • Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon, Ode LXX.

• A spring there is, whose silver waters show
  Clear as a glass the shining sands below:
  A flowering lotos spreads its arms above,
  Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove.
  • Alexander Pope, Sappho to Phaon, line 177.

• The lotos bowed above the tide and dreamed.
  • Margaret Junkin Preston, Rhodope's Sandal.

• The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
  The Lotos blooms by every winding creek:
  All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
  Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone,
  Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters, Choric Song, Stanza 8.

• In that dusk land of mystic dream
  Where dark Osiris sprung,
  It bloomed beside his sacred stream
  While yet the world was young;
  And every secret Nature told,
  Of golden wisdom's power,
  Is nestled still in every fold,
  Within the Lotos flower.
  • William Winter, A Lotos Flower.