Looking for Delhi quotes and captions to inspire your next trip to Delhi or to go with a pic of your trip to Delhi on Instagram? Look no further! Here’s the ultimate collection of the most beautiful quotes on Delhi for you!

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Delhi: A City that Defines Hindustan (India)

Delhi – it’s not just a city but an emotion.

It’s a metaphor too. It’s been a beloved muse to the generation of poets, writers, and artists who have immortalized the city in their chefs-d’oeuvre.

One thing I love about Delhi is its undying spirit. The city has been looted, destroyed, and rebuilt many times but it managed to rise from the ashes every time. Splendidly.

I’ve lived and worked in Delhi for more than a decade now and still feel there’s so much to learn and know about this city I call home.

With a rich history, intriguing culture, diverse religions, crumbling ruins, lively streets, crowded yet colorful markets, mouth-watering food, and warm locals, Delhi hides lots of stories in its soul. Let’s try to unfurl, one story at a time, with these eloquent quotes about Delhi.

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Best Quotes About Delhi

Some of the most soulful or rather soul-stirring quotes about Delhi and its heritage came from the Urdu poets who called Delhi their home.

One day I asked my soul: what is Delhi? She replied: The world is the body and Delhi is its soul.
(Ik roz apni rooh se poocha, ke dilli kya hai, toh yun jawab me keh gayi, yeh duniya maano jism hai aur dilli uski jaan)
~ Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

Delhi, that chosen city of the world, where only those of privileged professions resided, that city that the heavens have looted and laid waste, I am the inhabitant of that destroyed garden
(Kya bood-o-baash poochhte ho poorab ke saakino, humko gareeb jaan ke has has pukaar ke, Dilli jo ek sheher tha aalam-e-intekhaab mein, rehte thay mutakhib hi jahaan rozgaar ke, usko falak ne loot ke barbaad kar diya, hum rehnewaalein hain uss ujade dayyaar kay)
~ Nawab Asifud Dwalah

Delhi alone is a city of love; all those that have passed through have looted it
(Dil ki basti bhi shehar dilli hai; Jo bhi guzra usee ne loota)
~ Bashir Badr

Both heart and Delhi may have been worn out, but some little pleasures still remain in this ruined house
(Dil va Dilli dono agar hai kharaab; Pa kuch lutf us ujde ghar mein bhi hain)
~ Mir Taqi Mir

We hear that poetry is greatly valued in Deccan these days but, Zauq, who could bear to leave behind the alleyways of Delhi
(Humne maana ke dakkan mein hai bahut qadr-e-sukhan, kaun jaaye Zauq par Dilli ki galiyaan chhod kar)
~ Sheikh Ibrahim Zauq

How unlucky are you, Zafar, for your burial, you could not even get a couple of yards of land in your beloved’s street (Kitna hai badnaseeb Zafar dafan ke liye, do gaz zameen bhi na mili ku-e-yaar mein)
~ Bahadur Shah Zafar

Delhi’s streets were not alleys but parchment of a painting, Every face that appeared seemed like a masterpiece
(Dilli ke na the kuchey nahin, auraaq-e-musawwqr the
Jo shakl nazar aayi, tasveer nazar aayi)
~ Mir Taqi Mir

The sad face defines the city, whatever is the condition of the heart is the condition of Delhi
(Chehre pe sare shahar ke gard-e-malal hai, jo dil ka haaal hai wahi dilli ka haal hai)
~ Malikzada Manzoor Ahmad

Oh Mushafi! Do not fall for these, miraculously cruel are the maidens of Delhi
(Ey Mushafi! Na inse kabhi jee lagayiye, Zaalim ghazab ki hoti hain yeh dilli waliyan)
~ Mushafi

These are not the streets of Delhi but the canvas of an artist, every sight/face I see is like a painting
(Dilli ke naa thay kooche auraaq-e-musavvar thay, jo shakl nazar aayi tasveer nazar aayi)
~ Mir Taqi Mir

The condition of Delhi is not worth narrating, Delhi’s story is fit for making one cry. Vandals have uprooted its castles, which were worth seeing and appreciating. There are no homes, no temples, nothing. Only Zafar remains, to sing the woes of Delhi (Nahin haal-e-Dilli sunaane ke kaabil, ye kissa hai rone aur rulaane ke kaabil, ujaade looteron ne wo mehel iske, jo thay dekhne aur dikhaane ke kaabil, naa ghar hai naa dar hai raha ek Zafar hai, fakat haal-e-Dilli sunaane ke kaabil)
~ Bahadur Shah Zafar

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Delhi Quotes in Hindi

Yeh sheher nahin nehfil hai (This isn’t a city, it’s a party)
~ Prasoon Joshi

Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar, bas ishq mohabbat pyar.
~ Prasoon Joshi

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More Quotes for Delhi

Delhi now belonged to everyone who lived in it. But no one belonged to Delhi.
~ Anupreeta Das

Certainly, Delhi is unimaginably antique, and age is a metaphysic, I suppose. Illustrations of mortality are inescapable there and do give the place a sort of nagging symbolism. Tombs of emperors stand beside traffic junctions, forgotten fortresses command suburbs, the titles of lost dynasties are woven into the vernacular, if only as street names.
~ Jan Morris

Delhi is not just a national capital, it is one of the political ultimates, one of the prime movers. It was born to power, war, and glory. It rose to greatness not because holy men saw visions there but because it commanded the strategic routes from the northwest, where the conquerors came from, into the rich flatlands of the Ganges delta. Delhi is a soldiers’ town, a politicians’ town, journalists’, diplomats’ town. It is Asia’s Washington, though not so picturesque, and lives by ambition, rivalry, and opportunism.
~ Jan Morris

Delhi is definitely a foodie’s paradise.
~ Esha Gupta

I love the food, the girls, the sky, and everything that is Delhi. I have very fond memories of the Moolchand flyover.
~ Vir Das

Whenever I come to Delhi, I forget about eating right and watching my weight.
~ Madhur Bhandarkar

That’s Delhi. When life gets too much for you all you need to do is to spend an hour at Nigambodh Ghat, watch the dead being put to flames and hear their kin wail for them. Then come home and down a couple of pegs of whisky. In Delhi, death and drink make life worth living,”
― Khushwant Singh

Delhi means everything to me. This city has given me everything and I love it.
~ Virat Kohli

Delhi is my emotional home. I still dream of owning a home there.
~ Kabir Bedi

Delhi came as a shock. There were so many people and oh, the traffic.
~ Tina Turner

Delhi women – they’re the most beautiful women! But the fact remains that they know they are gorgeous.
~ Vir Das

Partition was a total catastrophe for Delhi, she said.’Those who were left behind are in misery. Those who were uprooted are in misery. The peace of Delhi is gone. Now it is all gone.
~ William Dalrymple

I was born in Faridabad and I spent a major part of my growing up years in Delhi before shifting to Mumbai. Delhi-NCR is still very special to me.
~ Sonu Nigam

I auditioned for my first show in Delhi and got through. There’s no fancy story around it, sadly.
~ Sriti Jha

Delhi is like my second home.
~ Shaheer Sheikh

The centuries-old history and culture of India, majestic architectural monuments, and museums of Delhi, Agra, and Mumbai have a unique attractive force.
~ Vladimir Putin

Every time we left our Delhi flat, we’d returned home with more questions than answers.
~ Dave Prager

Nothing beats the food of Delhi.
~ Neha Kakkar

My experience is that Delhi behaves the way the leadership defines.
~ Narendra Modi

Despite my critical take on the city, I love Delhi, on the whole – love its monuments, love how easily graspable the city’s turbulent history is. The negative things I write about are considered normal here.
~ Karan Mahajan

Delhi is excellent. Everything looks so beautiful. In Bombay, we don’t have such beautiful roads, spacious places, and you cannot have the luxury of having houses and bungalows. You have to live in little pokey flats and the cost of living is extremely high in Mumbai. Delhi has a lot that people keep preserving… a lot of which is what Delhi is about.
~ Bipasha Basu

Delhi’s history is etched over its landscape in stone. Magnificent forts, mosques, and tombs of the Sultanate and Mughal periods evoke an aura of the medieval world while the stately layout and architecture of Lutyen’s Delhi bear the imposing imprint of British Imperial rule.
~ Upinder Singh

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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.
~ Donna Karan

One evidence of the continuing importance of Delhi, as a location in the third century BC, is the inscription (edict) engraved here on the instruction of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka… the edict is to be found on a rock in the area in modern Kalkaji.
– Krishna Menon

I left Delhi in 1989 and remember very little of how life used to be then. Increasingly, in my recent visits to Delhi, I’ve started to realize that the city has become intellectually very lively. It makes me want to discover the city over and over again.
~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Since independence, after the trauma of partition, Delhi now as the national capital has acquired economic stability, as the seat of the national government, and the home of head offices of both domestic and multinational companies.
– Patrick Horton

Delhi area has an incredibly long and eventful ancient past, beginning thousands of years ago in the stone age and merging at the other end into the medieval period when the Rajputs made-way for Delhi Sultans in the twelfth century.
– Upinder Singh

There are a lot of memories to take home but the most emotional moment has been when I was touching down in New Delhi. Tears rolled down when I saw the red soil in Delhi from the plane.
~ Kamla Persad-Bissessar

It has been said that Delhi is not a city, but a collection of villages… There were Tamil villages, and Gujarati and Kannadiga, and over everything, like a blanket — like a blankety-blanket — a vast and spirited Punjabi joy in living that kept the city together and made it one, made it as much as was possible a city.
– Vijay Nambisan

We want to change the identity of Delhi from Generator Capital to Power Generation Capital.
~ Narendra Modi

Modern Delhi began with the slow revival of the city under British domination. During the ‘Delhi Renaissance’, approximately 1830 to the outbreak of the uprising of 1857, Delhi exhibited the beginnings of a cultural ferment; Western technology and idea entered the city and supported each other.
– Rakesh Kumar Bhatt

In Delhi the cars are getting bigger and sleeker, the hotels are getting posher, the gates are getting higher, and the guards are no longer the old chowkidars, the watchmen, but they are fellows with guns. And yet the poor are packed into every crevice like lice in the city. People don’t see that anymore. It’s as if you shine a light very brightly in one place, the darkness deepens around.
~ Arundhati Roy

June in Delhi illustrates the common belief that a Delhiwala, like a cockroach, can survive anything, for such are the vicissitudes of weather, conditioning, and deprivation that the human spirit here has soared to new heights of indomitability to survive.
– Namita Gokhale

I would love to live in India or in the South of France, but Roger Vivier doesn’t have offices yet in New Delhi or Jaipur.
~ Ines de La Fressange

It’s because Gandhi believed in villages and because the British ruled from the cities; therefore, Nehru thought of New Delhi as an un-Indian city.
– Nadan Nilekani

India is calling Blood is calling to blood. Get up, we have no time to lose. Take up your arms! we shall carve our way through the enemy’s ranks, or if God wills, we shall die a martyr’s death. And in our last sleep, we shall kiss the road that will bring our Army to Delhi. The road to Delhi is the road to Freedom. Chalo Delhi (March to Delhi).
~ Subhas Chandra Bose

Delhi. The ruins of an old city, markets, monuments, the zigzag of roads, the still sad times of music past and rising up from it, her mother, wind in her hair, laughing like a witch.
– Debotri Dhar

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I decided to go and find India on my own. So, I hired a cab for a drive around old Delhi. I was knocked off-center by the sheer energy that goes into daily survival. ~ Art Malik

Delhi is perhaps the best place to be left a bit undiscovered, to put for later because it will come looking for you, to your city, like a city in love, to ask when you’ll come back. Every visit to Delhi is a reminder for you to visit again, soon.
– unknown|

We want a good government that works. Let us rise above caste divisions and nepotism and pledge to elect a government that is development-oriented. Delhi needs a stable government and a strong government.
– Narendra Modi

Delhi has always been a gateway city, built on the plains, initially on the fording point on the Yamuna River and on the route between western and Central Asia and Southeast Asia. The old empires did not conform to natural boundaries or present-day frontiers, and the limits of the Delhi-centered empire waxed and waned with the power of the ruler.
– Patrick Horton

South Delhi is such a rich area in Delhi, you could call it the heart of Delhi or a slice of heaven for the rarest sight of Delhiites served with a cherry.
~ Parul Wadhwa

If given a chance, I would really want to explore the monuments in Delhi, like Qutub Minar and the forts. I have been there as a child, but now I want to go back and understand the history and significance behind them. We take all of these things for granted in life.
~ Shreya Ghoshal

Growing up in Delhi, one gets addicted to pollution.
~ Karan Mahajan

 The bus was running late, but in truth, this was no surprise. Delhi probably got its name from the word ‘delay’.
~ Karl Pilkington

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Delhi people can make anything look fancy. Delhi scares me with fast pace vehicles and running life, it can almost thrill anyone.
~ Parul Wadhwa

Building on the remains of the past, dreaming of a possible future is what makes Delhi, Delhi.
~ Malvika Singh

The great tradition of Delhi can be seen through its cuisine.
~ Mohit Chauhan

I met a hundred men going to Delhi and everyone is my brother.
~ Pope Paul VI

There’s a hustling, but also a self-centered vibe you can get from people in Delhi.
~ Karan Mahajan

As a child growing up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, my connection to my Indian roots came from summer visits to New Delhi where my grandparents lived.
~ Ro Khanna

Apparently, the city of Delhi is a ‘character’ in my novels. I’d argue that it’s a…city…in my novels.
~ Karan Mahajan

I fell in love with the night sky when I first looked through a telescope as a young girl growing up in Delhi.
~ Priyamvada Natarajan

I have some really nice memories of Delhi. Going swimming, roaming around in Defence Colony, cycling in its beautiful, wide lanes, and enjoying good food.
~ Sidharth Malhotra

The world needs real-world universities, ‘doer’ universities. We’re going to set up one model of it in Ladakh. And if it is successful, we hope it’ll have a ripple effect from New Delhi to New York.
~ Sonam Wangchuk

Delhi is always buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. There’s always something to do.
~ Nora Fatehi

I was in high school when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled India’s flag in New Delhi.
~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I have lived my whole life in Delhi. I used to live in Rohini and then I moved to Munirka. I have seen north and south Delhi very closely. That’s why my songs and raps have a Dilli waali feel to them. Delhi made me who I am today and I am proud of it.
~ Raftaar

We shot many films in Delhi that turned out to be successful at the box office. So the attachment is definitely on the positive side.
~ Anushka Sharma

Delhi is full of energy. It is special to me because I have shot my first film here, and it is closer to my home town Chandigarh. I love the food, the vibe, and the people here.
~ Yami Gautam

But in Delhi, people love artists. They love any musician, any actor; anybody from the art field who visits from the entertainment industry gets an amazing response in Delhi.
~ Raftaar

There is a difference between Mumbai wali Urvashi and Delhi wali Urvashi, and there is no place like Delhi on this earth.
~ Urvashi Rautela

I am happy that Delhi is now catching up fast on the nightlife circuit. The city has a rocking nightlife.
~ Rahul Dev

I love Delhi for its historical value and the variety of food it offers.
~ Paresh Rawal

I have found Delhi so much more beautiful than Mumbai. South and central Delhi, especially, are just so beautiful – the roads, the trees, the buildings, the history.
~ Akshaye Khanna

Except for the pollution, I love everything about Delhi.
~ Sharmila Tagore

Delhi is fresh, brazen, and more glamorous as compared to subtle Mumbai.
~ Boney Kapoor

Of course, every city has its own character, but I enjoy coming to Delhi.
~ Akshaye Khanna

I love everything about Delhi, mostly the fact that people here never fail to react to music.
~ Amit Trivedi

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The first thing I look forward to when I am in Delhi is to spend some time with my family. It’s always lovely coming back here and playing in front of my own people. It’s just a special place.
~ Virat Kohli

I decided to go and find India on my own. So, I hired a cab for a drive around old Delhi. I was knocked off-center by the sheer energy that goes into daily survival.
~ Art Malik

Delhi is my favorite city having spent most of my growing up years here. Performing here is like a homecoming for me.
~ Satish Kaushik

My cousin lives in Delhi, so I kept visiting the city and got really fascinated with DU. Apart from studies, one also gets good exposure to music here. For an artist, there are a lot of opportunities in the city.
~ Mohit Chauhan

The Delhi winter is amazing.
~ Amrita Rao

Delhi is not just India Gate and Lal Qila, it’s way beyond that. There are a lot of things that are Delhi, which only a Dilliwalla can understand. I have lived in South Delhi amidst greenery. When I got to Mumbai, I missed the Delhi parks and grounds.
~ Shoojit Sircar

No wonder Delhi is known for its fashion, everyone is so stylish here!
~ Zareen Khan

It is really sad, as Delhi is our capital and one of the most beautiful places in India, but if a city can’t make its women feel safe, then everything else is worthless.
~ Shenaz Treasury

Delhi is fabulous – the roads, greenery, the monuments!
~ Aditi Rao Hydari

Delhi, for me, means my mother and lots of love!
~ Aditi Rao Hydari

I love Delhi’s winter.
~ Nushrat Bharucha

Delhi is the only city where I eat junk food.
~ Urvashi Rautela

Delhi gives you a lot of love. Bombay people don’t care much because it’s usual for them to see a TV serial guy or a movie actor.
~ Raftaar

Delhi has a different vibe.
~ Manushi Chhillar

I love coming to Delhi. Driving around in south Delhi is fun. And the food here is fab.
~ Akshaye Khanna

Whenever I am in Delhi, I gain around 2 kg weight as I eat out almost every day. I am a vegetarian and there are so many options available here that I can barely resist. I thought Connaught Place was the best place to shop in Delhi, but Khan Market is also very good.
~ Ishita Dutta

That’s it! I’m sure, you must have known Delhi a bit even if you haven’t traveled to yet Hope you’re inspired enough to visit Delhi soon. If you’ve already been to the chaotic yet colorful city, hope you’re able to find that perfect quote or Instagram caption for Delhi trip?

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The post Delhi Quotes that Perfectly Capture the Soul of Delhi appeared first on Travel Melodies.