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.

Even I, when I was a student in London, often wore Western clothes, and yet I'm the most Indian Indian I know.

[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.

I assure you we'll go on making our decisions without worrying whether it pleases or displeases the Soviet Union, China, America, France, or anyone else.

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!

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.

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