The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience. [On diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China]

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

I feel like an aeroplane at the end of its flight, in the dusk, with the petrol running out, in search of a safe landing.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues & silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power & India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air & water would be taxed in India.

The most formidable people in the world, and now the most dangerous, people who... lay down the doctrine that every frontier must be the starting out point for invasion.

The rhinoceros stood ... about five hundred yards away ... not a twentieth-century animal at all, but an odd, grim straggler from the Stone Age.