110+ Indira Gandhi Quotes On Education, Work And Poverty

Indira Gandhi was an Indian politician and the only female Prime Minister of India. She served from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. Her tenure was marked by the Indian Emergency, which saw the suspension of civil liberties and the controversial nationalisation of banks. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Indira Gandhi on leadership, education, work.

Top 10 Indira Gandhi Quotes

1. 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.
2. People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.
3. Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
4. Every new experience brings its own maturity and a greater clarity of vision.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
8. The purpose of life is to believe, to hope, and to strive.
9. The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
10. Let's not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti.

Indira Gandhi Image Quotes

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. — Indira Gandhi

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

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

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

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. — Indira Gandhi

Ability is not always gauged by examination. — Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi Short Quotes

• You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
• Ability is not always gauged by examination.
• 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.
• 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.
• Mankind will endure when the world appreciates the logic of diversity.
• The greatest of all contraceptives is affluence.
• Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.

Indira Gandhi Quotes About Work

You said, 'How is it possible for democracy to work with an illiterate people who are dying of hunger?' But with that people we made a democracy work. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

Nothing can convince me that people are at one with their work unless they're joyous about it. — Indira Gandhi

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

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. — Indira Gandhi

What good does it do to remain tied to an ideology if you don't achieve anything by it? I have an ideology myself - you can't work in a vacuum; you have to have faith in something. — Indira Gandhi

I'm certainly not tired - work doesn't tire people, it's getting bored that's tiring. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi Quotes About Poverty

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

Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance. — Indira Gandhi

I have certain objectives. They're the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness. — Indira Gandhi

They're the problems of poverty, of the rights of the individual, of the changes brought about by technology. They're the ones that count, more than religion! — Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi Quotes About Inspiring

People with clenched fists can not shake hands. — Indira Gandhi

We should not mourn for men of high ideals. Rather we should rejoice that we had the privilege of having had them with us, to inspire us by their radiant personalities. — Indira Gandhi

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

Indira Gandhi Quotes About People

My father was prime minister, and to take care of his home, to be his hostess, automatically meant to have my hands in politics - to meet people, to know their games, their secrets. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

The life I've had, the difficulties, the hardships, the pain I've suffered since I was a child. It's a great privilege to have led a difficult life, and many people in my generation have had this privilege - I sometimes wonder if young people today aren't deprived of the dramas that shaped us. — Indira Gandhi

Do you know that, until recently, poor people brought children into the world for the sole purpose of making use of them? But how can you change, by force or all of a sudden, an age-old habit? The only way is to plan births, by one means or another. — Indira Gandhi

I myself, in my heart, say that people should have all the children they want. But it's a mistaken idea, like many of our ideas that go back thousands of years, and it must be rooted out. — Indira Gandhi

Until today the rights of people have always been put forward by a few individuals acting in the name of the masses. Today instead of people no longer want to be represented; each wants to speak for himself and participate directly - it's the same for the Negroes, for the Jews, for women. — Indira Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was always talking of religion...He was convinced that was right...The fact is, we young people didn't agree with him on many things. — Indira Gandhi

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

People often ask me: Who has influenced you the most? Your father? Mahatma Gandhi? Yes, my choices were fundamentally influenced by them, by the spirit of equality they infused in me - my obsession for justice comes from my father, who in turn got it from Mahatma Gandhi. — Indira Gandhi

At first people asked us, 'Can you do it?' And we kept silent because we didn't believe in ourselves, we didn't believe that we could do things. Today people no longer say to us, 'Can you?' They say, 'When can you?' Because the Indians finally believe in themselves, they believe they can do things. — Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi Quotes About Action

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

That's always been my philosophy. - I've never thought of the consequences of a necessary action. — Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi Famous Quotes And Sayings

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. — Indira Gandhi

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

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

Ability is not always gauged by examination. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning. — Indira Gandhi

In an underdeveloped society, the first anxiety is of infant mortality. In an advanced one it is to keep alive the aged. — Indira Gandhi

All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake. — Indira Gandhi

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! — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

We have believed - and we do believe now - that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

in today's world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence. — Indira Gandhi

I don't know how to put on an act; I always show myself for what I am, in whatever mood I'm in. — Indira Gandhi

[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. — Indira Gandhi

The India I want, I'll never tire of repeating, is a more just and less poor India, one entirely free of foreign influences. If I thought the country was already marching toward these objectives, I'd give up politics immediately and retire as prime minister. — Indira Gandhi

The civil servant is primarily the master of the short-term solution. — Indira Gandhi

I know you were surprised when, after the fall of Dacca, Pakistani and Indian officers shook hands. But do you realize that, up until 1965, in our army and the Pakistani one you could come across generals who were brothers? Blood brothers, sons of the same father and the same mother. — Indira Gandhi

I certainly won't have an empty life! — Indira Gandhi

However, the treaty exists and it puts us in a different position toward the Soviet Union than the one we have toward other countries. Yes, the treaty exists. Nor does it exist on only one side. Look how w3e're situated geographically and you'll see that India is very important for the Soviet Union. — Indira Gandhi

Politics is the art of acquiring, holding, and wielding power. — Indira Gandhi

If you only knew what it did to me to have lived in that house where the police were bursting in to take everyone away! I certainly didn't have a happy and serene childhood. — Indira Gandhi

If we offer something to Bangladesh, it's obvious that Bangladesh is offering something to us. And why shouldn't Bangladesh be able to keep its promises? Economically it's full of resources and can stand on its feet. Politically it seems to me led by trained people. The refugees who took shelter here are going home. — Indira Gandhi

Naturally, if the Americans had fired a shot, if the Seventh Fleet had done something more than sit there in the Bay of Bengal...yes, the Third World War would have exploded. But, in all honesty, not even that fear occurred to me. — Indira Gandhi

The struggle for independence here has been conducted in equal measure by men and by women. And when we got our independence, no one forgot that. In the Western world, on the other hand, nothing of the kind has ever happened - women have participated, yes, but revolutions have always been made by men alone. — Indira Gandhi

We would rather starve than sell our national honor. — Indira Gandhi

I fall in love with anything I do and I always try to do it well. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

The meek may one day inherit the earth, but not the headlines. — Indira Gandhi

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

The Indians and Pakistanis are literally brothers. — Indira Gandhi

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

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

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

The International Control Commission isn't doing anything, it's never done anything. What good does it do to be on it or not? Before opening the embassy in Hanoi, I gave it a lot of thought, but it wasn't really a painful decision. American policy in Vietnam is what it is, in Saigon the situation is anything but normal, and I'm happy to have done what I did. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

[Visiting Richard Nixon] useful only to me. The experience taught me that when people do something against you, that something always turns out in your favor. — Indira Gandhi

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. — Indira Gandhi

What we do now, on the other hand...Don't think that I'm crazy about this kind of politics. It's no accident that I've done everything to keep my sons out of it, and so far I've succeeded. After independence I retired immediately from politics. — Indira Gandhi

Life is always full of dangers and I don't think one should avoid dangers. — Indira Gandhi

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

No one ever indoctrinated me. — Indira Gandhi

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

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. — Indira Gandhi

Defeats are always pitiful. Victories are always last resources. — Indira Gandhi

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

Life is a continuous process of adjustment. — Indira Gandhi

This is also something I've learned from experience. Didn't they perhaps give us the vote because we went too far? — Indira Gandhi

I don't see why we and the Chinese should have to be enemies. — Indira Gandhi

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

I've always discovered things for myself, in marvelous freedom. — Indira Gandhi

When it's impossible, it's better to stoop to compromise, without resisting and without complaining. People who complain are selfish. — Indira Gandhi

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

Life Lessons by Indira Gandhi

1. Indira Gandhi taught us to be courageous and resilient in the face of adversity. She showed us that with hard work and determination, we can achieve our goals no matter the obstacles.
2. Indira Gandhi also taught us the importance of standing up for what we believe in and never compromising our values.
3. Finally, she showed us the power of compassion and understanding, and how it can be used to bring people together and create positive change.