Jawaharlal Nehru Quotes

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure.

Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.

Success often comes to those who dare to act. It seldom goes to the timid who are ever afraid of the consequences.

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.

Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.

By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and a Hindu only by accident of birth.

Play the hand you're dealt.

A man who is afraid will do anything.

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.

The art of a people is a true mirror of their minds.

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

A country is known by the way it treats its animals

I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized on this earth, capable of becoming master of his fate and captain of his soul.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving people... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

Blood and tears are going to be our lot, whether we like them or not. Our blood and tears will flow; maybe the parched soil of India needs them so that the fine flower of freedom may grow again.

Ignorance is always afraid of change.

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.

The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interests.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes.

All the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.

Every great revolution, whether it is right or not, we really know has any vital, urgent need to basis. It comes not just from itself.

The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

The man who has gotten everything he wants is all in favor of peace and order.

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.

For the first time i began to think, consciously and deliberately of religion and other worlds. The Hindu religion especially went up in my estimation; not the ritual or ceremonial part, but it's great books, the "Upnishads," and the "Bhagavad Gita."

Do not advise too much: do the job yourself. This is the only advice you can give to others. Do it and others will follow.

I am the last Englishman to rule in India.

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge... At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

Socialism is... not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems.

Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.

To be successful in life what you need is education.

Remember always that there not so very much difference between various people as we seem to imagine. Maps and atlases show us countries in different colors. Undoubtedly people do differ from one another, but they resemble each other also a great deal, and it is well to keep this in mind and not misled by colors on the map or by national boundaries.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. It is never a narrowing of the mind or a restriction of the human spirit or the country's spirit.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

The light has gone out of our lives... Yet I am wrong, for the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light... and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country and the world will see it... For that light represented the living truth.

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.

Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow.

Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral.

To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.

I think the years I have spent in prison have been the most formative and important in my life because of the discipline, the sensations, but chiefly the opportunity to think clearly, to try to understand things.

If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Samskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. If our race forgot the Buddha, the Upanishads and the great epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), India would cease to be India .