Indira Gandhi Quotes

I always stayed married to my husband! Always, until the day he died! It's not true that we were separated!

The longer one doesn't write, the more difficult it is to communicate.

Home is wherever I go.

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.

Just when you think you've achieved something, you realize you've achieved nothing. And still you have to go forward just the same - toward a dream so distant that your road has neither beginning nor end.

In India people can't stomach this attitude of mine, and when I say, 'Hurry up, let's get to the point,' they feel hurt.

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

The Indians and Pakistanis are literally brothers.

No one ever indoctrinated me.

The word 'when' is so important for a people, for an individual! If an individual thinks he won't do it, he'll never do it. Even if he's highly intelligent, even if he has countless talents.

I began to travel by myself, in Europe, when I was eight years old. At that age I was already on the move between India and Swizerland, Switzerland and France, France and England. Administering my own finances like an adult.

what is popular need not necessarily be right or wise.

Do you know why I won the last elections? It was because the people liked me, yes, because I had worked, yes, but also because the opposition had behaved badly toward me. And do you know why I won this war? Because my army was able to do it, yes, but also because the Americans were on the side of Pakistan.

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

How can anybody who is the head of a nation afford not to be a prag-matist?

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

To become capable, one must have faith in oneself.

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

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.

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.

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

We couldn't be everywhere, we couldn't see everything, and it was inevitable that some things would escape us.

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

Our pride has grown in the last twenty-five years, though others don't understand it and underestimate it.

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

Mankind will endure when the world appreciates the logic of diversity.

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.

If by happiness you mean instead an ordinary contentment, then yes - I'm fairly contented. Not satisfied - contented.

One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money.

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?'

A revolution is already taking place in India. Things are changing here already - peacefully and democratically. There's no danger of communism. There would be if we had a rightist government instead of mine.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

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

Unfortunately even in India there are people who talk like that. And they're the same ones who say, 'We should never have accepted the existence of Pakistan. Now that it exists, it ought to be destroyed.' But these are only a few madmen who have no following among the masses.

I like to think I've provided this faith. I also think that by providing faith, I've focused their pride. I say focused because pride isn't something you give. It doesn't even break out suddenly; it's a feeling that grows very slowly, very confusedly.

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.

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.

Sometimes we hurt one another without realizing it.

My sons...I was crazy about my sons and I think I've done a super job in bringing them up.

When you look at the beginning of the actual war, it's not hard to recognize that the Pakistanis were the ones to attack.

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.

Still, in international matters, the treaty changes nothing. That is, it doesn't prevent us from being friends with other countries, which indeed we are.

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.

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.

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

With boys I climbed trees, ran races, and wrestled. I had no complexes of envy or inferiority toward boys. At the same time, however, I liked dolls.

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

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