Indira Gandhi Quotes

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.

Opportunities are not offered. They must be wrested and worked for. And this calls for perseverance... and courage.

I am proud that I spent the whole of my life in the service of my people ... I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it.

Every new experience brings its own maturity and a greater clarity of vision.

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.

People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

Without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue. You have to have courage - courage of different kinds: first, intellectual courage, to sort out different values and make up your mind about which is the one which is right for you to follow. You have to have moral courage to stick up to that - no matter what comes in your way, no matter what the obstacle and the opposition is.

The purpose of life is to believe, to hope, and to strive.

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.

Women sometimes go too far, it's true. But it's only when you go too far that others listen.

To become capable, one must have faith in oneself.

Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.

Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic.

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.

We always said that our struggle was not only against the British as representatives of colonialism, it was against all the evil that existed in India. The evil of the feudal system, the evil of the system based on caste, the evil of economic injustice.

The power to question is the basis of all human progress.

I cannot understand how anyone can be an Indian and not be proud.

Difficulties can't be eliminated from life. Individuals will always have them, countries will always have them...The only thing is to accept them, if possible overcome them, otherwise to come to terms with them. It's all right to fight, yes, but only when it's possible.

One day in 1965 Rajiv wrote me from London, where he was studying, and informed me, 'You're always asking me about girls, whether I have a special girl, and so forth. Well, I've met a special girl.' And when Rajiv returned to India, I asked him, 'Do you still think about her in the same way?' And he said yes. But she couldn't get married until she was twenty-one, and until she was sure she'd like to live in India. Sonia is almost completely an Indian by now, even though she doesn't always wear saris.

Popularity is not a gurantee of quality.

Let's not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti.

One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money.

Never forget that when we are silent, we are one. And when we speak we are two.

In the Western world, women have no other choice. In India, no. And I'll explain the reason. It's a reason that also has to do with my own case. In India women have never been a hostile competition with men - even in the most distant past, every time a woman emerged as a leader, perhaps as a queen, the people accepted her. As something normal and not exceptional.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Ability is not always gauged by examination.

The immediate is often the enemy of the ultimate.

As I always say, I do not wish you an easy time, but I wish you that whatever difficulty you may have, you will overcome 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.

If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.

India had barely become independent, in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The maharajah fled, and the people of Kashmir, led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help. Lord [Louis] Mountbatten, who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn't be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn't seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population.

Life is a continuous process of adjustment.

You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired.

People with clenched fists can not shake hands.

A nation' s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.

It is legitimate to have one's own point of view and political philosophy. But there are people who make anger, rather than a deeply held belief, the basis of their actions. They do not seem to mind harming society as a whole in the pursuit of their immediate objective. No society can survive if it yields to the demands of frenzy, whether of the few or the many.

To be a mother, a housewife, never cost me any sacrifice - I savored every minute of those years.

Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances.

I think one should do what seems right. And if what seems right involves danger...well, one must risk the danger.

Nothing that is worthwhile is ever easy.

Being prime minister isn't the only job in life! As far as I'm concerned, I could live in a village and be satisfied.

I went back into politics only when it was clear that things weren't going as they should have in my party. I was always arguing, I argued with everyone - with my father, with the leaders I had known since I was a child...and one day, it was in 1955, one of them exclaimed, 'You do nothing but criticize! If you think you can correct things, correct them. Go ahead, why don't you try?' Well, I could never resist a challenge, so I tried.

Now I don't get upset by unpleasant things, I don't play the victim, and I'm always ready to come to terms with life.

Sometimes friends are dangerous. We must be very careful about the help friends give us.

There are only moments of happiness - from contentment to ecstacy.

I learned very soon to get along by myself.

I've never understood women who, because of their children, pose as victims and don't allow themselves any other activities.

We must protect families, we must protect children, who have inalienable rights and should be loved, should be taken care of physically and mentally, and should not be brought into the world only to suffer.

Every democratic system evolves its own conventions. It is not only the water but the banks which make the river.