30 Saadat Hasan Manto Quotes On Courageous, Confident And Honest Life

As we all know, life is inevitable of struggles and agony. Our desires may or may not be fulfilled, instead, they show the pathway to success through struggles. A man with such experiences is praiseworthy to take his words for life.

Saadat Hasan Manto is a man of struggles who has penned his agony as writings. He’s an Indian - Pakistani writer of the post-colonial period which influenced his writings on the partition. He has beautifully captured the conditions of both sides across the border in his writings.

A courageous path by Manto, fighting all negativity, has put up some exemplary words for us to get inspired. Here is a list of few Saadat Hasan Manto quotes to replenish your spirit.

1. War has brought inflation even to the graveyard.

This very first of Saadat Hasan Manto quotes describes the distressed heart of the author worried about partitioned India. It has not spared the graveyard even!

2. Writers rarely set out to be national writers. They need small, intimate worlds, full of details; the macro scale of countries, especially those as wide and various as India, cannot be their direct material.

The next one out of all Hasan Manto quotes emphasizes that the writers who take the initiative to write on the nation are a few considering detailed variants.

3. If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don’t even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that’s the job of dressmakers.

An agitating heart of the writer has spilled about another one of prominent Hasan Manto quotes where he is disappointed with the ill to ease society.

4. If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth.

Through these lines, the sayer hits hard at his opinion on the filthy society which is the reason for the others to accept. This is a truthful one among Hasan Manto quotes expressing that the truth is always bitter to believe.

5. The field that cannot feed even its tiller Burn down every stalk that stands on it.

A must ponder thing! The best saying for today’s food crisis situation! This one of all thought-provoking Saadat Hasan Manto quotes, explains the pathetic condition of the feeders when the basic farmers face a crisis.

6. Literature and film in my opinion are like saloons where bottles have no labels. I want to taste each one myself and figure out which is what. If I’m denied this by labelling, then my entertainment is considerably lessened.

7. I feel like I am always the one tearing everything up and forever sewing it back together.

This one among the Hasan Manto quotes for life, is a common error in everyone’s life. Once we commit and regret it for our whole life.

8. I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty.

This one out of Saadat Hasan Manto quotes on life highlights the beauty in disguise. Enjoy everything!

9. …and it is also possible that Saadat Hasan dies, but Manto remains alive.

This fruitful one of all Saadat Hasan Manto quotes is self-reflexive of his notable works that are endless.

10. For me, remembrance of things past has always been a waste of time, and what’s the point of tears? I don’t know. I’ve always been focussed on today. Yesterday and tomorrow hold no interest for me. What had to happen, did, and what will happen, will.

Another important one of Hasan Manto quotes on life is something to stick on to forever. Yesterday and tomorrow are just notions of time and have got nothing to do with emotions. Let’s not wry upon the past and worry about the future; anything that happens today for a reason.

11. If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion?… Is love incomplete without it?… Is love the name of physical exercise?

This one is a lovable one of Hasan Manto quotes on love! A man and a woman are connected with an emotion called love that is free of animality impurity.

12. As a writer, I find the relationship fascinating. Consider it. There is tension, and often unpleasantness, in both the union of man and woman and of State and citizen. There is a great deal of hypocrisy too, but the relationship is not ever severed. The intercourse between State and citizens (it will be appropriate to call it forcible intercourse) also produces offspring as a marriage does. But frightening ones, like the Safety Act and Ordinance. Offspring that resemble their father, the State, more than the citizenry.

13. Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still a slave in both these countries — the slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.

This one of Hasan Manto quotes on the post freedom scenario is assertive of restless nations after the acclaimed partition.

14. Nobody knows my city’s respect better than my city’s prostitutes.

Gives a better understanding!

15. He catches the thieves that lie in the hearts of their pure and respectable wives. And he compares them to the purity in the heart of a whore in a brothel.

This one of respectable Hasan Manto quotes snatches the real thieves of the society who are definitely not women!

16. As a writer, I find the relationship fascinating. Consider it. There is tension, and often unpleasantness, in both the union of man and woman and of State and citizen. There is a great deal of hypocrisy too, but the relationship is not ever severed. The intercourse between State and citizens (it will be appropriate to call it forcible intercourse) also produces offspring as a marriage does. But frightening ones, like the Safety Act and Ordinance. Offspring that resemble their father, the State, more than the citizenry.

17. To tell you the truth, the world seemed full of sad people – those who slept on the uncovered stoops of shops as well as those who lived in high-rise mansions. The man who walks about on foot worries that he doesn’t have decent shoes to wear. The man who rides the automobile frets that he doesn’t have the latest model car. Every man’s complaint is valid in its own way. Every man’s wish is legitimate in its own right.

An insightful one of all Hasan Manto quotes on life again. Desire is a chaser that is hard to stay away from humans’ minds. Wherever you go, the wanting crave never lets you sleep peacefully. So, live happily with what you have because none other than you are ready to care about your haves and don'ts.

18. A man remains a man no matter how poor his conduct. A woman, even if she were to deviate for one instance, from the role given to her by men, is branded a whore. She is viewed with lust and contempt. Society closes on her doors; it leaves ajar for a man stained by the same ink. If both are equal, why are our barbs reserved for the woman?

Yes! Yes! Yes! Why is it so? The filthy minds are the maximum reasons more often for the sore hearts of women. When the society yells that there can be no race, why the discrimination alone weighs different on those races. So, yell out the ‘moral and immoral’ instead of ‘men and women’. Must take up words of Saadat Hasan Manto quotes.

19. You would have realized that it wasn’t Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn’t have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn’t have killed his Muslimness, but him.

20. His last years were beset with financial troubles; he drank heavily; he wrote to Chughtai on more than one occasion, pleading with her to find a way for him to come back to India. She was surprised to learn that far from large protests and signed declarations on his behalf, many in Pakistan felt he deserved to be punished. He died on January 18, 1955 in Lahore at the age of forty two.

21. Thought a glass of lassi would be refreshing. In the shop I noticed that the fan was on, but turned away from both customers and the owner. I was curious and asked why it was so. The owner glared at me and said: ‘Can’t you see?’ I looked. The fan was pointed in the direction of a poster of our great leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. I shouted, ‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ and left without the lassi. In front of a shop, a man

22. To those men who say that women from good families must come into the world of cinema, I have this question: What is it that you mean by good? A woman, who honestly puts her wares on display, and sells them without an intention to cheat, is such a woman not virtuous?

This one of all Saadat Hasan Manto quotes is enough to prove that not all covered women are ethical and uncovered women are tarts. Respect women by heart and not by looks! The fact sensed even earlier!

23. He ate off dirty plates and was unfazed. His pillowcase was soiled and stank, but he never thought of changing it. Hamid thought long and hard, but he couldn’t understand him. He often asked, ‘Babuji, why aren’t you revolted by dirtiness?

This one of all Hasan Manto quotes seeks us all to clean the filthy hearts first to worry about materialistic dirtiness around.

24. Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control.

25. Here in Manto’s own words that he wanted to mark his grave with: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lies buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing…. Under tons of earth, he lies, still wondering who among the two is the greater short-story writer: God or He.

This one seems more spiritual of all Saadat Hasan Manto quotes that ironically praises God who undoubtedly writes the lives of each one of us.

26. Manto’s take on Ismat: Ismat’s pen and tongue both run fast. When she starts writing, her ideas race ahead and the words cannot catch up with them. When she speaks, her words seem to tumble over one another. If she enters the kitchen to show her culinary skill, everything will be in a mess. Being hasty by nature, she would conjure up the cooked roti in her mind even before she had finished kneading the dough. The potatoes would note yet be peeled although she would have already finished making the curry in her imagination. I feel sometimes she may just go into the kitchen and come out again after being satiated by her imagination.

27. We’ve been hearing this for some time now — Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved.

Exactly! It's not the nature of nature turning pity but the people who turn it pitiful must be the foremost concern of all. This is a society concerning one of all Hasan Manto quotes.

28. Dear God, master of the universe, compassionate and merciful: we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before your throne and beseech you to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, Lord, for he runs away from fragrance and chases after filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates sweetness but will give his life to taste bitter fruit. He will not so much as look at housewives but is in seventh heaven in the company of whores. He will not go near running waters but loves to wade through filth. Where others weep, he laughs; and where others laugh, he weeps. Faces blackened by evil, he loves to wash with tender care to make visible their real features. He never thinks about you but follows Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed you.

29. A little ahead was a shop burnt in the riots. A man now sat inside with two large slabs of ice on the floor. A thought came to me: ‘At last the poor shop has the chance to cool itself.

30. I thought that the Hindus and Muslims would busy themselves in this war and their blood, which did not mix in mosque and temple, would finally mingle in Bombay’s drains and gutters.

True! This has been since ages; if not realized now, then it can’t be fixed ever! Slaying innocents in the name of sects will not make any of it superior to the other, instead, they will ruin together. This sensation of all Saadat Hasan Manto quotes just expresses- ‘Let’s practice humanity and celebrate harmony!’

This is the end of this article on Saadat Hasan Manto quotes on life, experience and confidence. As we have seen, the above quotes of great spirit to confront controversies are a kind of motivation to renew our nation despite setbacks.

Never stop until you choose the best path for your nation!

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