Steve Jobs at Stanford

The man who exemplified living up to what you love the most in this world, has been an idol for millions!  "I" has left the world! The generations that follow have lost a chance to witness how miracles are caused by passionate ideas. They have lost a chance to know how the beginning of a story becomes insignificant when you have your dream. And they have lost a chance to look up to a living legend who proved with his own example that life is not about the degrees you hold in your life, but about what you can do in spite of all odds. Another cut out lines that I admire from Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech at Stanford University (12th June 2005). Such powerful lines even out of the complete speech's context make incredible sense! You can read the entire speech here.

...

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

...

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Speech during the Dissolution of the Order of the Star of the

"Truth is a a pathless land". So dramatically glorified as "The Chosen One" by the Theosophists, dissolves the order he was predicted to lead from the tender age of 13 years. Such a huge organisation being dissolved by the Head of the Order, in front of more than 3000 members and aired on the radio by multiples of thousands, in the year 1929 accounts for a historic movement. Following are the lines I love the most in his speech. You can read the entire speech here.

... 

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organised; nor should any organisation be formed to lead or coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organise a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organise it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallised; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others...

... 
If an organisation be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it.

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this; not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions, may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussion year after year.


A newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organisation in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves?...


... 
You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else.... when I say look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organisation?...


No man from outside can make you free; nor can organised worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organisation, nor throwing yourselves into work, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an alter and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organisations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. If there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough....

J. K. Rowling at Harvard

I love these lines from J. K. Rowling's commencement speech at Harvard Business School (June 5, 2008). She speaks of failure as one of her themes for this event! Ironical on the face of it, but her reason for choosing "Failure" for this occasion is simply brilliant! You can read the complete speech here!

"...

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An
exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really
succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose
value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

..."

Fit of laughter :-D

One of the candid videos that I love! Two legends together is a sight to be captured and this one is surely one of its kinds! :-D

Food for thought...

10 amazing phrases which make you think differently every time you read them! An elegant way of viewing reality and way of life! :-)

1. "Where horrendous evils are concerned, not only do we not know God's actual reason for permitting them; we cannot even conceive of any plausible candidate sort of reason consistent with worthwhile lives for human participants in them."-Marilyn McCord Adams
2. Can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it? An omnipotent being must be able to create such a rock, but doing so negates the omnipotence.- George Carlin
3. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting – Aristotle
4. The unexamined life is not worth living.
   - Socrates
5. The question is not who would let me, its who would stop me. - Ayn Rand
6. If someone feels that they had never made a mistake in their life, then it means they had never tried a new thing in their life.-Einstein
7. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.-George Bernard Shaw
8. Don’t go about saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain
9. An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - Gandhi
10. There are two great days in a person’s life:- The day we are born and the day we discover why we are born - Winston Churchill

कणा - कुसुमाग्रज

"ओळखलत का सर मला" -- पावसात आला कोणी

कपडे होते कर्दमलेले, केसांवरती पाणी.

क्षणभर बसला नंतर हसला बोलला वरती पाहून:

"गंगामाई पाहुणी आली, गेली घरट्यात राहून

माहेरवाशीण पोरीसारखी चार भिंतीत नाचली

मोकळ्या हाती जाईल कशी - बायको मात्र वाचली --

भिंत खचली चूल विजली होते नव्हते नेले

प्रसाद म्हणून पापण्यांमध्ये पाणी थोडे ठेवले --

कारभारणीला घेऊन संगे सर, आता लढतो आहे

पडकी भिंत बांधतो आहे. चीक्खल गाळ काढतो आहे" --

खिश्या कडे हात जाताच हसत हसत उठला

"पैसा नको सर, जरा एकटेपणा वाटला --

मोडून पडला संसार तरी मोडला नाही कणा

पाठी वरती हात ठेऊन नुसते लढ म्हणा."

Sand Fantasy

And excellent way of story telling! :-) Hats off to the artist!

Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me

That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

तकदीर

"तकदीर के खेल से निराश नहीं होते, जिंदगी में कभी उदास नहीं होतेl

हाथों की लकीरों पे इतना यकीं मत कर, तकदीर तो उनकी भी होती है जिनके हाथ नहीं होतेl"

Love - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,

When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,

Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy,

My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,

The statue of the armed Knight;

She stood and listen'd to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! My joy! My Genevieve!

She loves me best whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I play'd a soft and doleful air;

I sang an old and moving story--

An old rude song, that suited well

That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

For well she knew I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand;

And that for ten long years he woo'd

The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!

The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sang another's love,

Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the dark some shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade...

There came and look'd him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,

He leap'd amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death

The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept and clasp'd his knees;

And how she tended him in vain;

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest leaves

A dying man he lay;

His dying words--but when I reach'd

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherish'd long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love and virgin shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved--she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stept--

Then suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,

She press'd me with a meek embrace;

And bending back her head, look'd up,

And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,

And partly 'twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see.

The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

p.s: One of my favorites! Note the genius of having 3 stories in one love story!

Troy

I present one of the best movies I have seen in the form of its script. Here's coming 1o best dialogues in the movie - Troy!

1. Achilles’ entry - an elegant way of portraying the arrogant mindset! What follows is the first duel scene of the movie. This scene surely promises a solid 2 hours 30 minutes full of awe and perfection!

Achilles: I was having a good dream, very good dream…

Messenger boy: King Agamemnon sent me. He needs you…

Achilles: I’ll speak to your King in the morning.

Messenger boy: My Lord, it is morning! They are waiting for you. (A long pause) Are the stories about you true? They say your mother is an immortal goddess. They say you can’t be killed!

Achilles: I wouldn’t be bothering with the shield then, would I?

Messenger boy: The Thessalonian you are fighting, he is the biggest man I have ever seen! I wouldn’t want to fight him.

Achilles: That’s why no one will remember your name!

2. Discussion between Hector and Paris when Hector comes to know that Helen (Queen of Sparta) is on the ship! Trojan’s are returning to their land after the signing of Peace Treaty between Troy and Sparta.

Hector: You fool; do you know what you have done? Do you know how many years our father worked for peace?

Paris: I love her!

Hector: Ahh! It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? You roam from town to town betting merchant’s wives and temple maids, and you think you know something about love? What about your father’s love? You spat on him when you brought her on the ship! What about the love for your country? You’d let Troy burn for this woman? I won’t let you start a war for her!

Paris: May I speak? What you are saying is true! I have wronged you, I have wronged our father! If you want to take Helen back to Sparta, so be it. But I go with her!

Hector: To Sparta, they’ll kill you!

Paris: Then I’ll die fighting.

Hector: Oh well, that sounds heroic to you, doesn’t it? To die fighting, tell me little brother – have you ever killed a man?

Paris: No.

Hector: Have you seen a man die in a combat?

Paris: No.

Hector: I have killed men, and I have heard them dying and I have watched them dying and there is nothing glorious about it! Nothing poetic! You say you want to die for love, but you know nothing about dying and you know nothing about love!

Paris: All the same! I go with her. I won’t ask you to fight my war.

Hector: (A helpless pause) You already have!

3. King Odysseus convincing Achilles to fight for the Greeks.

Achilles: Are you here with Agamemnon’s bidding?

Odysseus: We need to talk.

Achilles: I will not fight for him.

Odysseus: I am not asking you to fight for him. I am asking you to fight for the Greeks.

Achilles: Why? Are the Greeks tiered of fighting each other?

Odysseus: For now.

Achilles: The Trojan’s never harmed me!

Odysseus: They insulted Greece!

Achilles: They insulted one Greek, a man who couldn’t hold on to his wife, what business is that of mine?

Odysseus: Your business is war my friend!

Achilles: Is it? The man has no honor.

Odysseus: Let Achilles fight for honor, let Agamemnon fight for power and let the God’s decide which man to glorify! ----- This war will never be forgotten, nor will the heroes who are fighting it!

4. First confrontation of Prince Hector and Achilles. Achilles’ army has just conquered a Trojan Temple.

Achilles: You are very brave or very stupid to come after me alone! You must be Hector. Do you know who I am?

Hector: These priests weren’t armed! (Swinging his sword) Fight me!

Achilles: (A pause with a sarcastic smile) Why kill you now Prince of Troy, with no one here to see you fall?

Hector: Why did you come here?

Achilles: They will be talking about this war for thousand years!

Hector: In a thousand years, the dust from our bones would be gone.

Achilles: Yes Prince, but our names will remain. Go home Prince, drink some wine, and make love to your wife. Tomorrow we’ll have our war!

Hector: You speak of war, is it for the game? But how many wives waited those give their husbands would never see them again?

Achilles: Perhaps you brother might comfort them. I hear he is good at charming other men’s wives!

5. Conversation between King Agamemnon and Achilles after capturing the Trojan beach.

Achilles: Apparently you won some great victory!

Agamemnon: Ah! Perhaps you didn’t notice, the Trojan beach belonged to Priam in the morning, it belongs to Agamemnon in the afternoon.

Achilles: You can have the beach; I didn’t come here for the sand.

Agamemnon: No, you came here because you want your name to last through the edges! A great victory was won today. But that victory is not yours. Kings did not kneel to Achilles. Kings did not pay homage to Achilles.

Achilles: Perhaps the Kings were far behind in the sea. The soldiers won the battle!

Agamemnon: History remembers Kings, not soldiers. Tomorrow we’ll batter down the gates of Troy. I’ll build monuments of victory on every islands of Greece. I’ll carve Agamemnon in the stone!

Achilles: Be careful King of Kings, first you need the victory.

6. Conversation between Priam and Paris after Paris commits to fight against King Menelaus (Helen’s husband)

Paris: Father, I am sorry for the pain I have caused you.

Priam: Do you love her?

Paris: You are a great King, because you love your country so much. Every plaid of grass, every grain of sand, every rock in the river; you love all of Troy. That is the way I love Helen.

Priam: I have fought many wars in my time. Some were for the land, some for power and some for glory. I suppose fighting for love makes more sense than all the rest. But I won’t be the one fighting. (Hands him the Sword of Troy)

7. Greek Kings and Princes of Troy face to face before the first battle!

Agamemnon: I see you not hiding behind your high walls. Valiant of you, ill-advised but valiant!

Hector: You come here uninvited. Go back to your ships and go home.

Agamemnon: We’ve come to far Prince Hector.

Menelaus: Prince, what Prince? What son of a King would accept a man’s hospitality, eat his food, drink his wine, embrace him in friendship and then steal his wife in the middle of the night?

Paris: The sun was shining when your wife left you!

Menelaus: (Pointing his sword at Paris) She is up there watching, isn’t she? Good. I want her to watch you die.

Agamemnon: Not yet brother. (Lowering Menelaus’ sword) Look around you Hector. I brought all the warriors of Greece to your shores; you can still save Troy young Prince. I have two wishes, if you grant them; no more of your people need to die. First – you must give Helen back to my brother; second – Troy must submit to my command, to fight for me whenever I call.

Hector: You want me to look upon your army and tremble? When I see them, I see fifty thousand men brought here to fight for one man’s greed!

Agamemnon: Careful boy. My mercy has limits.

Hector: And I have seen the limits of your mercy! And I tell you now, no son of Troy will ever submit to a foreign ruler!

Agamemnon: Then every son of Troy shall die. (Starts going back to his chariot)

Paris: There is another way. I love Helen. I won’t give her up and neither will you. So let us fight our own battle. The winner takes Helen home. And let that be the end of it.

Agamemnon: A brave offer, but not enough.

8. Briseis the Royalty from Trojan Kingdom held as a captive is just been saved by Achilles from Greek warriors. This conversation suggests that Achilles might be an atheist!

Briseis: I have known men like you my whole life.

Achilles: No you haven’t!

Briseis: You think you are so different than the thousand others? All those who understand nothing but war? Peace confuses them.

Achilles: And you hate these soldiers?

Briseis: I pity them.

Achilles: Trojan soldiers died trying to protect you. Perhaps they deserve more than your pity.

Briseis: Why did you choose this life?

Achilles: What life?

Briseis: To be a great warrior?

Achilles: I chose nothing. I was born and this is what I am. And you? Why did you choose to live a guard? Think you will find the romance one sided?

Briseis: Do you enjoy provoking me?

Achilles: You dedicated your life to the Gods. Zeus - God of Thunder, Athena - Goddess of Wisdom; you serve them?

Briseis: Yes of course.

Achilles: And Aris - God of War, the blanket he wears, with the men he has killed for the skin?

Briseis: All the Gods are to be feared and respected.

Achilles: I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us! They envy us because we are mortal; because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed! You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

9. Achilles filled with rage knowing that Hector killed his cousin – Patroclus. One of the best duels ever featured follows this powerful dialogue!

Achilles: HECTOR… (Keeps on shouting his name till Hector comes in front of him)

Hector: I have seen this moment in my dreams. I’ll make a pact with you. With the Gods’ eye witnesses; let us pledge that the winner will allow the looser all the proper funeral rituals.

Achilles: There are no pacts between lions and men. (Takes his head gear off) Now you know who you are fighting.

Hector: (Takes off his head gear) I thought it was you I was fighting yesterday. And I wish it had been you! But I gave the dead boy the honor he deserved…

Achilles: You gave him the honor of your sword. You won’t have eyes tonight; you won’t have ears or a tongue. You will wander the underworld blind, deaf and dumb and all the dead will know - this is Hector, the fool who thought he killed Achilles!

10. Priam in Achilles’ marquee for convincing him to give back the body of Hector for the funeral. Achilles had dragged Hector’s body behind his chariot after defeating him.

(Priam enters Achilles’ marquee, kneels down on his knees and kisses Achilles’ hands)

Achilles: Who are you?

Priam: I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son!

Achilles: Priam? (Priam nods) How did you get in here?

Priam: I know my own country better than the Greeks I think.

Achilles: You are a brave man! (Helps Priam get up and sit) I could have your head on a spit in a blink of an eye.

Priam: You really think death frightens me now? I watched my eldest son die. Watched you drag his body behind your chariot. Give him back to me. He deserves the honor of a proper burial, you know that! Give him to me.

Achilles: He killed my cousin!

Priam: He thought he was you! How many cousins have you killed? How many sons and fathers and brothers and husbands, how many brave Achilles? I knew your father. He died before his time. But he was lucky not to live long enough to see his son fall. You have taken everything from me. My eldest son, heir to my thorn, defender of my kingdom; I cannot change what happened it is the will of the Gods. But give me this small mercy. I loved my boy from the moment he opened his eyes till the moment you closed them. Let me wash his body, let me say the prayers; let me place two coins on his eyes for the boatman.

Achilles: If I let you walk out of here, if I let you take him; it doesn’t change anything. You are still my enemy in the morning.

Priam: You are still my enemy tonight! But even enemies can show respect.

Achilles: I admire your courage! Meet me outside in a moment. (He wraps Hector’s body and mounts it on the Chariot for Priam) Your son was the best I fought. In my country the funeral games last for 12 days.

Priam: It is the same in my country.

Achilles: Then the Prince will have that honor. No Greek will attack Troy for 12 days. (Priam nods)… Go, no one will stop you. You have my word. You are a far better King than the one leading this army!