Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
Ignorance is always afraid of change.
Peace is not merely an absence of war. It is also a state of mind.
There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life.
Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.
Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage.
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also, thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.
Unity must be of the mind and heart, a sense of belonging together and of facing together those who attack it.
India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age.
Great causes and little men go ill together.
When the present is full of gloom, the past becomes haven of refuge that provides relief and inspiration.
The future has to be lived before it can be written about.
If the world suffers from mental deterioration or from moral degradation, then something goes wrong at the very root of civilization or culture. Even though that civilization may drag out for a considerable period, it grows less and less vital and ultimately tumbles down.
Poverty anywhere is a danger to prosperity everywhere.
Those who boast are seldom the great.
We can’t encourage narrow mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought.
Only a prisoner who has been confined for long behind high walk can appreciate the extraordinary psychological value of these outside walks and open views.
What is history, indeed, but a record of change?
I wish that more and more adventurous young men would give up the gun in favour of the camera.