Indira Gandhi Quotes

“My son had nothing to do with policy or decision making, nor did I discuss the elections or any other matter with him.”

“There are moments in history when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can be lightened by recalling great moments of the past.”

“Life is a continuous process of adjustment.”

“I said, I'll put on weight. And I started having massages, taking cod-liver oil, and eating twice as much. But I didn't even gain an ounce. I'd made up my mind that on the day the engagement was announced I'd be fatter, and I didn't gain an ounce. Then I went to Mussoorie, which is a health resort, and I ignored the doctors' instructions; I invented my own regime and gained weight. Just the opposite of what I'd like now. Now I have the problem of keeping slim. Still I manage. I don't know if you realize I'm a determined woman.”

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

“Opportunities are not offered. They must be wrested and worked for. And this calls for perseverance... and courage.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“In all communities you find groups that behave badly. But you must understand them too.”

“You say this victory is dangerous. I say that today no one can yet tell if it's dangerous, that today I don't see the risks you mention. If, however, those risks should become reality...I'll act in accordance with the new reality.”

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

“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.”

“When one has had a life as difficult as mine, one doesn't worry about how others will react.”

“I'm certainly not a workaholic.”

“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.”

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

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

“what is popular need not necessarily be right or wise.”

“I can't take it seriously when people get excited and scream that religion is in danger, and similar stupidities.”

“When I was young, I was very selfish, now not any more.”

“To me the function of politics is to make possible the desirable.”

“One day in 1965 Rajiv wrote me from London, where he was studying, and informed me, 'You're always asking me about girls, whether I have a special girl, and so forth. Well, I've met a special girl.' And when Rajiv returned to India, I asked him, 'Do you still think about her in the same way?' And he said yes. But she couldn't get married until she was twenty-one, and until she was sure she'd like to live in India. Sonia is almost completely an Indian by now, even though she doesn't always wear saris.”