Stateswoman Quotes

I think one should do what seems right. And if what seems right involves danger...well, one must risk the danger.

Popularity is not a gurantee of quality.

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

Maybe I would have considered the problem if I'd met someone with whom I'd have liked to live. But I never met this someone and... No, even if I had met him, I'm sure I wouldn't have got married again. Why should I get married now that my life is so full? No, no, it's out of the question.

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.

People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.

If I'm happy, I look happy; if I'm angry, I show it. Without worrying about how others may react.

I'm certainly not a workaholic.

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

I have already reached out to the janata, and I am only trying to acquaint myself with people's problems.

Until today the rights of people have always been put forward by a few individuals acting in the name of the masses. Today instead of people no longer want to be represented; each wants to speak for himself and participate directly - it's the same for the Negroes, for the Jews, for women.

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

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.

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.

Sometimes friends are dangerous. We must be very careful about the help friends give us.

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.

This is why we feel that democracy's important: because democracy allows you to have small explosions and therefore avoid the bigger explosions.

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

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

Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.

There is not love where there is no will.

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

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.

The life I've had, the difficulties, the hardships, the pain I've suffered since I was a child. It's a great privilege to have led a difficult life, and many people in my generation have had this privilege - I sometimes wonder if young people today aren't deprived of the dramas that shaped us.

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.

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

I've never understood women who, because of their children, pose as victims and don't allow themselves any other activities.

Politics is the art of acquiring, holding, and wielding power.

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.

The meek may one day inherit the earth, but not the headlines.

That's always been my philosophy. - I've never thought of the consequences of a necessary action.

All of a sudden inscriptions appeared on walls. Signs appeared. And that 'no' exploded all over India, in an act of pride that surprised even me. Then even the political parties, all of them, even the deputies in Parliament, said no: it's better to die of hunger than be taken for a nation of beggars.

On the one hand, the rich look askance at our continuing poverty - on the other, they warn us against their own methods.

My father cared very much about courage, physical courage as well. He despised those who didn't have it. But he never said to me, 'I want you to be courageous.' He just smiled with pride every time I did something difficult or won a race with the boys.

When [my father] asked me to help him, I really didn't suspect the consequences.

It is our duty to create a social milieu in which the young and the socially weak feel that the present and future belong to them.

Without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue. You have to have courage - courage of different kinds: first, intellectual courage, to sort out different values and make up your mind about which is the one which is right for you to follow. You have to have moral courage to stick up to that - no matter what comes in your way, no matter what the obstacle and the opposition is.

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

We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives.

I've never turned to anybody for advice and counsel. Even when I was a very small child, I had to stand on my feet because of the circumstances of those times, and somehow, the circumstances have remained more or less the same. I have to take my own decisions.

I was happy to be with my parents. I didn't see very much of them, so I was very happy when my father was there and out of jail.

The International Control Commission isn't doing anything, it's never done anything. What good does it do to be on it or not? Before opening the embassy in Hanoi, I gave it a lot of thought, but it wasn't really a painful decision. American policy in Vietnam is what it is, in Saigon the situation is anything but normal, and I'm happy to have done what I did.

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

Have you ever climbed a mountain? You see, once you arrive at the top of a mountain, you think you've reached the highest point. But it's only an impression that doesn't last long.

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

You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired.

India wants to avoid a war at all costs but it is not a one-sided affair, you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

By now even the word socialism has so many meanings and interpretations. The Russians call themselves socialists, the Swedes call themselves. And let's not forget that in Germany there was also a national socialism.

I don't at all care who's on the right or left or in the center. Even though we use them, even though I use them myself, these expressions have lost all meaning.

People with clenched fists can not shake hands.

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.

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

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

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

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.

The immediate is often the enemy of the ultimate.

I grew up like a boy, also because most of the children who came to our house were boys.

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

The doctors advised me not to have even one. My health was still not good, and they said that pregnancy might be fatal. If they hadn't said that to me, maybe I wouldn't have got married. But that diagnosis provoked me, it infuriated me. I answered, 'Why do you think I'm getting married if not to have children? I don't want to hear that I can't have children; I want you to tell me what I have to do in order to have children!'

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