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.
— Indira Gandhi
The most practical Indira Gandhi quotes that are easy to memorize and remember
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.
A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
The purpose of life is to believe, to hope, and to strive.
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.
Let's not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Ability is not always gauged by examination.
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.
People with clenched fists can not shake hands.
To be a mother, a housewife, never cost me any sacrifice - I savored every minute of those years.
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.
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.
Rebels and non-conformists are often the pioneers and designers of change.
For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.
Mankind will endure when the world appreciates the logic of diversity.
Until the day she died, my mother continued to fight for the rights of women.
She joined all the women's movements of the time; she stirred up a lot of revolts. She was a great woman, a great figure. Women today would like her immensely.
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.
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.
The greatest of all contraceptives is affluence.
In all societies that have applied a form of socialism, a certain degree of social economic equality has been achieved.
As my father [Javāharlāl Nehrū] said, you have to keep an open mind, but you have to pour something into it - otherwise ideas slip away like sand between your fingers.
Would you consider a man or a woman to be complicated? Is it that difficult to understand both the sexes? We say that we know what the other sex is all about, but is that really true? Perhaps the following witty, funny quotes and sayings can help simplify things down about men.
The sterilization of men is one method of birth control.
The surest, most radical method. To you it seems dreadful. To me it seems that, properly applied, it's by no means dreadful.
All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.
Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.
I want to state that there will be friendship between Bangladesh and ourselves.
And not a one-sided friendship, of course - no one does anything for nothing; each has something to give and something to take.
Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.
Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance.
In an underdeveloped society, the first anxiety is of infant mortality.
In an advanced one it is to keep alive the aged.
You don't help a country by supporting a military regime that denies any sign of democracy, and what defeated Pakistan was its military regime.
You found an uncle on one side and a nephew on the other, a cousin here and a cousin there. Besides it's still true today. I'll tell you something else. There was a time when even two ambassadors to Switzerland, the one from India and the one from Pakistan, were two blood brothers. Oh, the Partition imposed on us by the British was so unnatural!
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.
We have believed - and we do believe now - that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible
Satisfied is a word I use only in reference to my country, and I'll never be satisfied for my country. For this reasons I go on taking difficult paths, and between a paved road and a footpath that goes up the mountain, I choose the footpath. To the great irritation of my bodyguards.
Muslim women had to go out in purdah, that heavy sheet that covers even the eyes. Hindu women had to go out in the doli, a kind of closed sedan chair like a catafalque. My mother always told me about these things with bitterness and rage.
Have a bias toward action - let's see something happen now.
You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
We announced that there'd be no more starvation in India.
And you responded, 'Impossible. You'll never succeed!' Instead we succeeded; today in India no one dies of hunger any more; food production far exceeds consumption.
I don't know how to put on an act; I always show myself for what I am, in whatever mood I'm in.
[Mahatma Gandhi] said that the first president of India ought to be a harijan girl, an untouchable. He was so against the class system and the oppression of women that an untouchable woman became for him the epitome of purity and benediction.
in today's world no country can be absolutely independent of another.
It is a world of interdependence.
