Stateswoman Quotes

Life is a continuous process of adjustment.

Never forget that when we are silent, we are one. And when we speak we are two.

The people have nothing to fear of me; people have never feared me.

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.

The greatest of all contraceptives is affluence.

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

I am frequently attacked.

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

Home is wherever I go.

The collective judgment of the electorate must be respected.

To become capable, one must have faith in oneself.

Nothing that is worthwhile is ever easy.

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.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

[My mother] was the oldest of two sisters and two brothers, and she grew up with her brothers, who were about her age. She grew up, to the age of ten, like a wild colt, and then all of a sudden that was over. They had forced on her her 'woman's destiny' by saying, 'This isn't done, this isn't good, this isn't worthy of a lady.'

Winning or losing of the election is less important than strengthening the country.

There are only moments of happiness - from contentment to ecstacy.

I do not like carving the world into segments; we are one world.

Difficulties can't be eliminated from life. Individuals will always have them, countries will always have them...The only thing is to accept them, if possible overcome them, otherwise to come to terms with them. It's all right to fight, yes, but only when it's possible.

... where does strength come from? It is not muscle strength any more. It is not also mere intellectual strength. What is strength? Strength is the support of the people.

in today's world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence.

I certainly won't have an empty life!

Now I don't get upset by unpleasant things, I don't play the victim, and I'm always ready to come to terms with life.

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

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.

For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Poverty assumes so many aspects here in India. There aren't only the poor that you see in the cities, there are the poor among the tribes, the poor who live in the forest, the poor who live on the mountains. Should we ignore them as long as the poor in the cities are better off? And better off with reference to what? To what people wanted ten years ago? Then it seemed like so much. Today it's no longer so much.

At first people asked us, 'Can you do it?' And we kept silent because we didn't believe in ourselves, we didn't believe that we could do things. Today people no longer say to us, 'Can you?' They say, 'When can you?' Because the Indians finally believe in themselves, they believe they can do things.

what is popular need not necessarily be right or wise.

I learned very soon to get along by myself.

I want to succeed. And I want to succeed in the best way possible, without caring whether people call my actions leftist or rightist.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

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

Nowadays you can no longer let yourself be indoctrinated - the world is changing so fast! Even what you wanted twenty years ago is no longer relevant today; it's outdated.

In all societies that have applied a form of socialism, a certain degree of social economic equality has been achieved.

The future doesn't frighten me, even if it threatens to be full of other difficulties.

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

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.

A nation' s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.

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.

We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further, and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?

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.

The question before the advanced nations is not whether they can afford to help the developing nations, but whether they can afford not to do so.

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.

We were to equally strong types [with my husband], equally pigheaded - neither of us wanted to give in. And...I like to think those quarrels made us better, that they enlivened our life, because without them we would have had a normal life, yes, but banal and boring.

Without peace there can be no prosperity for any people, rich or poor. And yet, there can be no peace without erasing the harshness of the growing contrast between the rich and the poor.

Happiness is a state of mind, you know. I don't think you are permanently happy. One is happy about certain things and not so happy about others.

Defeats are always pitiful. Victories are always last resources.

Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance.

I fall in love with anything I do and I always try to do it well.

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

Would you consider a man or a woman to be complicated? Is it that difficult to understand both the sexes? We say that we know what the other sex is all about, but is that really true? Perhaps the following witty, funny quotes and sayings can help simplify things down about men.

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

I cannot understand how anyone can be an Indian and not be proud.

We have believed - and we do believe now - that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible

Satisfied is a word I use only in reference to my country, and I'll never be satisfied for my country. For this reasons I go on taking difficult paths, and between a paved road and a footpath that goes up the mountain, I choose the footpath. To the great irritation of my bodyguards.

At a certain point the family moved to Jaipur, where no woman could avoid the doli or purdah. They kept her in the house from morning to night, either cooking or doing nothing. [My mother] hated doing nothing, she hated to cook. So she became pale and ill, and far from being concerned about her health, my grandfather said, 'Who's going to marry her now?' So my grandmother waited for my grandfather to go out, and then she dressed my mother as a man and let her go out riding with her brothers.

Politics...You see, it depends on what kind of politics. What we did during my father's generation was a duty. And it was beautiful because its goal was the conquest of freedom.

I don't think my father was my mentor.