Indira Gandhi Quotes

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.

A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.

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

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

There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.

We would rather starve than sell our national honor.

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.

I examine the consequences later, when a new situation arises and I then face the new situation. And that's it.

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

In all societies that have applied a form of socialism, a certain degree of social economic equality has been achieved.

By now even the word socialism has so many meanings and interpretations.

The Russians call themselves socialists, the Swedes call themselves. And let's not forget that in Germany there was also a national socialism.

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.

Everything I've done, I've done because I wanted to do it.

In doing it, I've plunged in headlong, always believing in it.

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

I'm trained to difficulties; difficulties can't be eliminated from life.

No one ever indoctrinated me.

My father was a saint. He was the closest thing to a saint that you can find in a normal man.

In India you don't find propaganda against Pakistan.

During the war there was a little of it, naturally, but even during the war we were able to control it. In fact the Pakistanis were astonished by this. There were prisoners in the camp hospitals who exclaimed, 'What? You're a Hindu doctor and you want to cure me?'

People who say it was her father who prepared her for the post of prime minister, it was her father who launched her, are wrong.

It's true that I refused foreign aid.

It's true. It wasn't my personal decision, however - it was the whole country that said no.

It's a law of life - check it and you'll see it holds true in every situation of life.

I see nothing wrong in sterilizing a man who has already brought eight or ten children into the world. Especially if it helps those eight or ten children to live better.

As for the job of prime minister, I like it, yes.

But no more than I've liked other work that I've done as an adult.

In fact the communists gained strength in India when the people thought my party was moving to the right. And they were correct.

I think I'm cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there's another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don't put on act.

Poverty assumes so many aspects here in India.

There aren't only the poor that you see in the cities, there are the poor among the tribes, the poor who live in the forest, the poor who live on the mountains. Should we ignore them as long as the poor in the cities are better off? And better off with reference to what? To what people wanted ten years ago? Then it seemed like so much. Today it's no longer so much.

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 remember harrowing episodes. People who emigrated, people who didn't want to emigrate...Many Muslims didn't want to leave India to go to live in Pakistan, but the propaganda was that there they'd have greater opportunities and so they left. Many Hindus, on the other hand, didn't want to stay in Pakistan, but they had ties there or property and so they stayed.

My children needed me, and I like my job as a social worker.

[ Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto is not a very balanced man.

When he talks, you never understand what he means. What does he mean this time? That he wants to be friends with us? We've wanted to be friends with him for some time; I've always wanted to.

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.

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.

In any case, I married Feroze Gandhi.

Once I get an idea in my head, no one in the world can make me change my mind.

I said that my father was not a politician.

I, instead, think I am. But not in the sense of being interested in a political career - rather in the sense that I think it necessary to strive to build a certain India, the India I want.

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

When I'm not governing my country any more, I'll go back to taking care of children.

I don't care if I remain prime minister.

I'm only interested in doing a good job as long as I'm capable and for as long as I don't get tired.

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

I grew up like a boy, also because most of the children who came to our house were boys.

For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.

I want to succeed. And I want to succeed in the best way possible, without caring whether people call my actions leftist or rightist.

You said, 'Planning is something for communist countries;

democracy and planning don't go together!' But, with all the errors we committed, our plans succeeded.

Until I was about eighteen, yes [I didn't want to get married].

But not because I felt like a suffragette, but because I wanted to devote all my energies to the struggle to free India. Marriage, I thought, would have distracted me from the duties I'd imposed on myself.

We know very well that India's destiny is linked to world peace.

I had many dolls. And you know how I played with them? By performing insurrections, assemblies, scenes of arrest. My dolls were almost never babies to be nursed but men and women who attacked barracks and ended up in prison.

I refuse to indulge in small talk. And compliments, if at all, I save for after the job is done.

It's not at all hard to reconcile the two things if you organize your time intelligently. Even when my sons were little, I was working.

When I'm not governing my country any more, I'll go back to taking care of children. Or else I'll start studying anthropology - it's a science that's always interested me very much, also in relation to the problem of poverty. Or else I'll go back to studying history - at Oxford I took my degree in history. Or else...I don't know, I'm fascinated by the tribal communities. I might busy myself with them.

In India's distant past, when the population was low, the blessing given a woman was, 'May you have many children.' Most of our epics and literature stress this wish, and the idea that a woman should have many children hasn't declined.