Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Quotes

By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. But extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty.

Village reform is not merely cleaning the roads, constructing schools and worshipping monasteries. It is not mere celebration of festivals.

There is no god, there is no god, there is no god at all. He who invented god is a fool. He who propagates god is a scoundrel. He who worships god is a barbarian.

Man treats woman as his own property and not as being capable of feelings, like himself. The way man treats women is much worse than the way landlords treat servants and the high-caste treat the low-caste. These treat them so demeaningly only in situations mutually affecting them; but men treat cruelly and as slaves, from their birth till death.

Marriages should culminate on account of the wishes of the couple. It is their knitting of the hearts that should lead to marriages.

A male has the right to wander about as he pleases. He has the right to marry any number of girls. This practice has led to prostitution.

There’s no god. He who created god was a fool; he who spreads his name is a scoundrel and he who worships him is a barbarian.

Capitalists control the machineries. They create difficulties to the workers. Consequently rationalism, which has to lead the way for peaceful life to all, has resulted in causing poverty and worries to the people because of dominating forces.

As long as we give room for domination and the dominators, there will be worries and worried people. Poverty and pestilence will live eternally in the country.

Foreigners are sending messages to the planets. We are sending rice and cereals to our dead fore-father through the Brahmins. It is a wise deed?

While all men are born as equals, to say that Brahmins alone are the highest and all others are low as Pariah (the Untouchables) or Panchama is sheer nonsense. It is roguish to say so. It is a big hoax played on us.

There is no use of simply acquiring titles or amassing wealth if one has no self-respect and scientific knowledge.