I cannot understand how anyone can be an Indian and not be proud.
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.
To me the function of politics is to make possible the desirable.
Without peace there can be no prosperity for any people, rich or poor. And yet, there can be no peace without erasing the harshness of the growing contrast between the rich and the poor.
I would like to ask a question. Would this sort of war or savage bombing which has taken place in Vietnam have been tolerated for so long, had the people been European?
Nothing can convince me that people are at one with their work unless they’re joyous about it.
It is our duty to create a social milieu in which the young and the socially weak feel that the present and future belong to them.
Rebels and non-conformists are often the pioneers and designers of change.
Nothing that is worthwhile is ever easy.
The longer one doesn’t write, the more difficult it is to communicate.
The old need the company of the young so that they renew their contact with life.
We have believed – and we do believe now – that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible.
Every democratic system evolves its own conventions. It is not only the water but the banks which make the river.
To be liberated, woman must feel free to be herself, not in rivalry to man but in the context of her own capacity and her personality.
To bear many children is considered not only a religious blessing but also an investment. The greater their number, some Indians reason, the more alms they can beg.
My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not.
The greatest of all contraceptives is affluence.
The civil servant is primarily the master of the short-term solution.
The question before the advanced nations is not whether they can afford to help the developing nations, but whether they can afford not to do so.
Home is wherever I go.
I don’t mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.