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.

It has been my experience that people who are at cross-purposes with nature are cynical about mankind and ill at ease with themselves.

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

I don't see the world as something divided between right and left.

If by religion we mean a belief in humanity rather than the gods, an effort to make man better and a little happier, then yes, I'm very religious.

Finally we promised to limit the birth rate. And this you really didn't believe; you smiled scornfully. Well, even in this things have gone well. The fact is that we have grown by over seventy millions in ten years, but it's also true that we have grown less than many other countries, including the countries of Europe.

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