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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.

-Indira Gandhi

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Still, In International Matters,

Indira Gandhi

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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.

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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.

In All Societies That Have Applied A Form Of Socialism, A Certain Degree Of Social Economic Equality Has Been Achieved.

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 Learned Very Soon To Get Along By Myself.

I Suggested A Compromise To Give The Banks A Year's Time And See If They Succeed In Showing Us That Nationalization Wasn't Necessary. The Year Went By And We Realized It Hadn't Done Any Good, That The Money Still Ended Up In The Hands Of The Rich Industrialists Or Friends Of The Bankers. So I Concluded That It Was Necessary To Nationalize The Banks. And We Did. Without Considering It A Socialist Gesture Or An Antisocialist Gesture, Just A Necessary One. Anyone Who Nationalizes Only So As To Be Considered On The Left To Me Is A Fool.

I Was A Welfare Worker For The Indian Council For Child Welfare. I'll Tell You A Story. Rajiv Was Only Four Years Old At That Time, And Was Going To Kindergarten. One Day The Mother Of One Of His Little Friends Came To See Us And Said In A Sugary Voice, 'oh, It Must Be So Sad For You To Have No Time To Spend With Your Little Boy!' Rajiv Roared Like A Lion: 'my Mother Spends More Time With Me Than You Spend With Your Little Boy, See! Your Little Boy Says You Always Leave Him Alone So You Can Play Bridge!' I Detest Women Who Do Nothing And They Play Bridge.

It Depends On What You Mean By The Word Religion. Certainly I Don't Go To Temples And Pray To The Gods Or Anything Like That.

In The Western World, Women Have No Other Choice. In India, No. And I'll Explain The Reason. It's A Reason That Also Has To Do With My Own Case. In India Women Have Never Been A Hostile Competition With Men - Even In The Most Distant Past, Every Time A Woman Emerged As A Leader, Perhaps As A Queen, The People Accepted Her. As Something Normal And Not Exceptional.

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.

How Is It Possible For People In The Modern World To Go On Killing Each Other For Religion? The Problems We Should Be Concerned With Nowadays Are Quite Different!

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.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Believe, To Hope, And To Strive.

I'm Trained To Difficulties; Difficulties Can't Be Eliminated From Life.

Even If I Died In The Service Of The Nation, I Would Be Proud Of It. Every Drop Of My Blood... Will Contribute To The Growth Of This Nation And To Make It Strong And Dynamic.

In An Underdeveloped Society, The First Anxiety Is Of Infant Mortality. In An Advanced One It Is To Keep Alive The Aged.

I Cannot Understand How Anyone Can Be An Indian And Not Be Proud.

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.

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.

I Assure You We'll Go On Making Our Decisions Without Worrying Whether It Pleases Or Displeases The Soviet Union, China, America, France, Or Anyone Else.

In All Communities You Find Groups That Behave Badly. But You Must Understand Them Too.

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.

We Couldn't Keep Ten Million Refugees On Our Soil; We Couldn't Tolerate Such An Unstable Situation For Who Knows How Long. That Influx Of Refugees Wouldn't Have Stopped - On The Contrary. It Would Have Gone On And On And On, Until There Would Have Been An Explosion. We Were No Longer Able To Control The Arrival Of Those People, In Our Own Interest We Had To Stop It! That's What I Said To Mr.[richard] Nixon, To All The Other Leaders I Visited In An Attempt To Avert The War.

I Want To State That There Will Be Friendship Between Bangladesh And Ourselves. And Not A One-sided Friendship, Of Course - No One Does Anything For Nothing; Each Has Something To Give And Something To Take.

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.

The Struggle For Independence Here Has Been Conducted In Equal Measure By Men And By Women. And When We Got Our Independence, No One Forgot That. In The Western World, On The Other Hand, Nothing Of The Kind Has Ever Happened - Women Have Participated, Yes, But Revolutions Have Always Been Made By Men Alone.

Peace We Want Because There Is Another War To Fight Against Poverty, Disease And Ignorance.

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.

Dacca Is Now The Free Capital Of A Free Country.

One Must Beware Of Ministers Who Can Do Nothing Without Money, And Those Who Want To Do Everything With Money.

The Indians And Pakistanis Are Literally Brothers.

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.

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.

Forgiveness Is A Virtue Of The Brave.

I Refuse To Indulge In Small Talk. And Compliments, If At All, I Save For After The Job Is Done.

Nothing Can Convince Me That People Are At One With Their Work Unless They're Joyous About It.

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.

The Meek May One Day Inherit The Earth, But Not The Headlines.

Home Is Wherever I Go.

Life Is Always Full Of Dangers And I Don't Think One Should Avoid Dangers.

My Father Was A Statesman, I'm A Political Woman. My Father Was A Saint. I'm Not.

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.

If We Offer Something To Bangladesh, It's Obvious That Bangladesh Is Offering Something To Us. And Why Shouldn't Bangladesh Be Able To Keep Its Promises? Economically It's Full Of Resources And Can Stand On Its Feet. Politically It Seems To Me Led By Trained People. The Refugees Who Took Shelter Here Are Going Home.

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.

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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.

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!'

If You Only Knew, For Instance, How Much I Enjoy Being A Grandmother! Do You Know I'm Twice A Grandmother? Rajiv And Sonia Have Had A Boy And A Girl.

When One Has Had A Life As Difficult As Mine, One Doesn't Worry About How Others Will React.

Have A Bias Toward Action - Let's See Something Happen Now. You Can Break That Big Plan Into Small Steps And Take The First Step Right Away.

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My Sons...i Was Crazy About My Sons And I Think I've Done A Super Job In Bringing Them Up.

Martyrdom Does Not End Something, It Only A Beginning.

When I Was Young, I Was Very Selfish, Now Not Any More.

The India I Want, I'll Never Tire Of Repeating, Is A More Just And Less Poor India, One Entirely Free Of Foreign Influences. If I Thought The Country Was Already Marching Toward These Objectives, I'd Give Up Politics Immediately And Retire As Prime Minister.

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I'm Not Ambitious. Not A Bit.

The Greatest Of All Contraceptives Is Affluence.

Life Is A Continuous Process Of Adjustment.

Happiness Is Such A Fleeting Point Of View - There's No Such Thing As Continual Happiness.

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.

I Examine The Consequences Later, When A New Situation Arises And I Then Face The New Situation. And That's It.

You Said, 'planning Is Something For Communist Countries; Democracy And Planning Don't Go Together!' But, With All The Errors We Committed, Our Plans Succeeded.

How Can Anybody Who Is The Head Of A Nation Afford Not To Be A Prag-matist?

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.

I Grew Up Like A Boy, Also Because Most Of The Children Who Came To Our House Were Boys.

Until The Day She Died, My Mother Continued To Fight For The Rights Of Women. She Joined All The Women's Movements Of The Time; She Stirred Up A Lot Of Revolts. She Was A Great Woman, A Great Figure. Women Today Would Like Her Immensely.

You Cannot Shake Hands With A Clenched Fist.

If You Only Knew What It Did To Me To Have Lived In That House Where The Police Were Bursting In To Take Everyone Away! I Certainly Didn't Have A Happy And Serene Childhood.

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.

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I Think One Should Do What Seems Right. And If What Seems Right Involves Danger...well, One Must Risk The Danger.

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 You Govern A Country, And Especially A Country So Vast And Complex As India, You Never Arrive At Anything.

It's The Same Story As When We Nationalized The Banks. I'm Not For Nationalization Because Of The Rhetoric Of Nationalization, Or Because I See In Nationalization The Cure-all For Every Injustice. I'm For Nationalization In Cases Where It's Necessary.

We Would Rather Starve Than Sell Our National Honor.

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.

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.

To Bear Many Children Is Considered Not Only A Religious Blessing But Also An Investment. The Greater Their Number, Some Indians Reason, The More Alms They Can Beg.

When I'm Not Governing My Country Any More, I'll Go Back To Taking Care Of Children.

If By Happiness You Mean Instead An Ordinary Contentment, Then Yes - I'm Fairly Contented. Not Satisfied - Contented.

Defeats Are Always Pitiful. Victories Are Always Last Resources.

I've Never Understood Women Who, Because Of Their Children, Pose As Victims And Don't Allow Themselves Any Other Activities.

You Found An Uncle On One Side And A Nephew On The Other, A Cousin Here And A Cousin There. Besides It's Still True Today. I'll Tell You Something Else. There Was A Time When Even Two Ambassadors To Switzerland, The One From India And The One From Pakistan, Were Two Blood Brothers. Oh, The Partition Imposed On Us By The British Was So Unnatural!

However, The Treaty Exists And It Puts Us In A Different Position Toward The Soviet Union Than The One We Have Toward Other Countries. Yes, The Treaty Exists. Nor Does It Exist On Only One Side. Look How W3e're Situated Geographically And You'll See That India Is Very Important For The Soviet Union.

Ability Is Not Always Gauged By Examination.

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.

I Don't Know How To Put On An Act; I Always Show Myself For What I Am, In Whatever Mood I'm In.

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.

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.

The Civil Servant Is Primarily The Master Of The Short-term Solution.

Do You Know That, Until Recently, Poor People Brought Children Into The World For The Sole Purpose Of Making Use Of Them? But How Can You Change, By Force Or All Of A Sudden, An Age-old Habit? The Only Way Is To Plan Births, By One Means Or Another.

My Theory Is That Men Are No More Liberated Than Women.

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.

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.

People Often Ask Me: Who Has Influenced You The Most? Your Father? Mahatma Gandhi? Yes, My Choices Were Fundamentally Influenced By Them, By The Spirit Of Equality They Infused In Me - My Obsession For Justice Comes From My Father, Who In Turn Got It From Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi Was Always Talking Of Religion...he Was Convinced That Was Right...the Fact Is, We Young People Didn't Agree With Him On Many Things.

We Announced That There'd Be No More Starvation In India. And You Responded, 'impossible. You'll Never Succeed!' Instead We Succeeded; Today In India No One Dies Of Hunger Any More; Food Production Far Exceeds Consumption.

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.

I Can't Take It Seriously When People Get Excited And Scream That Religion Is In Danger, And Similar Stupidities.

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.

Yes, He [mahatma Gandhi] Was A Great Man. However...between Me And Gandhi There Was Never The Understanding There Was Between Me And My Father.

Never Forget That When We Are Silent, We Are One. And When We Speak We Are Two.

My Father Was A Saint. I'm Not.

We Couldn't Be Everywhere, We Couldn't See Everything, And It Was Inevitable That Some Things Would Escape Us.

Little By Little I Changed My Mind, And When I Was About Eighteen, I Began To Consider The Possibility Of Getting Married. Not To Have A Husband, But To Have Children.

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.

There Are Only Moments Of Happiness - From Contentment To Ecstacy.

Moments Of Happiness

Nothing That Is Worthwhile Is Ever Easy.

Message In A Bottle

Mankind Will Endure When The World Appreciates The Logic Of Diversity.

If By Religion We Mean A Belief In Humanity Rather Than The Gods, An Effort To Make Man Better And A Little Happier, Then Yes, I'm Very Religious.

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.

I Know You Were Surprised When, After The Fall Of Dacca, Pakistani And Indian Officers Shook Hands. But Do You Realize That, Up Until 1965, In Our Army And The Pakistani One You Could Come Across Generals Who Were Brothers? Blood Brothers, Sons Of The Same Father And The Same Mother.

What We Do Now, On The Other Hand...don't Think That I'm Crazy About This Kind Of Politics. It's No Accident That I've Done Everything To Keep My Sons Out Of It, And So Far I've Succeeded. After Independence I Retired Immediately From Politics.

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.

When I'm Not Governing My Country Any More, I'll Go Back To Taking Care Of Children. Or Else I'll Start Studying Anthropology - It's A Science That's Always Interested Me Very Much, Also In Relation To The Problem Of Poverty. Or Else I'll Go Back To Studying History - At Oxford I Took My Degree In History. Or Else...i Don't Know, I'm Fascinated By The Tribal Communities. I Might Busy Myself With Them.

It Would Seem That It Was Not In The Interest Of 'someone' For Us To Make Progress. It Was In 'someone's' Interest That We Be Always At War, That We Tear Each Other To Pieces. Yes, I'm Inclined To Absolve The Pakistanis. How Should They Have Behaved? Someone Encouraged Them To Attack Us, Someone Gave Them Weapons To Attack Us. And They Attacked Us.

The Sterilization Of Men Is One Method Of Birth Control. The Surest, Most Radical Method. To You It Seems Dreadful. To Me It Seems That, Properly Applied, It's By No Means Dreadful.

My Father Was A Saint. He Was The Closest Thing To A Saint That You Can Find In A Normal Man.

People Tend To Forget Their Duties But Remember Their Rights.

Political Games

At No Point, At A Very Important Point: That Of Having Convinced The Indians That They Can Do Things.

Nothing Lasts Forever, And No One Can Predict What Will Happen To Me In The Near Or Distant Future.

Nothing Lasts Forever

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.

I Always Defended My Father, As A Child, And I Think I'm Still Defending Him - His Policies At Least. Oh, He Wasn't At All A Politician, In No Sense Of The Word. He Was Sustained In His Work Only By A Blind Faith In India - He Was Preoccupied In Such An Obsessive Way By The Future Of India. We Understood Each Other.

I Always Wanted To Have Children - If It Had Been Up To Me, I Would Have Had Eleven. It Was My Husband Who Wanted Only Two.

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.

To Become Our Enemies - What An Absurdity. A Crazy Absurdity When You Stop To Think That We, Muslims And Hindus, Had Conducted The Struggle For Independence Together.

Muslim Women Had To Go Out In Purdah, That Heavy Sheet That Covers Even The Eyes. Hindu Women Had To Go Out In The Doli, A Kind Of Closed Sedan Chair Like A Catafalque. My Mother Always Told Me About These Things With Bitterness And Rage.

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.

Until I Was About Eighteen, Yes [i Didn't Want To Get Married]. But Not Because I Felt Like A Suffragette, But Because I Wanted To Devote All My Energies To The Struggle To Free India. Marriage, I Thought, Would Have Distracted Me From The Duties I'd Imposed On Myself.

I Am Proud That I Spent The Whole Of My Life In The Service Of My People ... I Shall Continue To Serve Until My Last Breath And When I Die, I Can Say, That Every Drop Of My Blood Will Invigorate India And Strengthen It.

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.

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.

There Are Moments In History When Brooding Tragedy And Its Dark Shadows Can Be Lightened By Recalling Great Moments Of The Past.

It's A Law Of Life - Check It And You'll See It Holds True In Every Situation Of Life.

The Doctors Shrugged Their Shoulders And Grumbled That Perhaps If I Were To Put On Weight That Would Protect Me A Little - Being So Thin, I Would Never Succeed In Remaining Pregnant.

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.

I Have Certain Objectives. They're The Same Objectives My Father Had To Give People A Higher Standard Of Living, To Do Away With The Cancer Of Poverty, To Eliminate The Consequences Of Economic Backwardness.

I Discovered [joan Of Arc] Toward The Age Of Ten Or Twelve, When I Went To France. I Don't Remember Where I Read About Her, But I Recall That She Immediately Took On A Definite Importance For Me. I Wanted To Sacrifice My Life For My Country. It Seems Like Foolishness And Yet...what Happens When We're Children Is Engraved Forever On Our Lives.

In The Face Of Such A Threat, They Had No Other Choice But To Throw Themselves To The Far Left. But Now That The People Are Conscious Of Our Efforts, Now That They See Us Resolving Problems, The Communists Are Losing Strength.

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.

Sometimes Friends Are Dangerous. We Must Be Very Careful About The Help Friends Give Us.

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.

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.

I See Nothing Wrong In Sterilizing A Man Who Has Already Brought Eight Or Ten Children Into The World. Especially If It Helps Those Eight Or Ten Children To Live Better.

You Said, 'how Is It Possible For Democracy To Work With An Illiterate People Who Are Dying Of Hunger?' But With That People We Made A Democracy Work.

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.

The Longer One Doesn't Write, The More Difficult It Is To Communicate.

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.

I'm Not Interested In One Label Or The Other - I'm Only Interested In Solving Certain Problems, In Getting Where I Want To Go.

What Is Popular Need Not Necessarily Be Right Or Wise.

People With Clenched Fists Can Not Shake Hands.

Inspirational Life

What Does Nonalignment Mean? It Means We Don't Belong To Any Military Bloc And That We Reserve The Right To Be Friends With Any Country, Independently Of The Influence Of Any Country. All This Has Remained Unchanged After The Signing Of The Indo-soviet Treaty, And Others Can Say Or Think What They Like - Our Policy Won't Change Because Of The Soviet Union.

Forgiveness Is The Virtue Of Brave.

I Don't Mind If My Life Goes In The Service Of The Nation. If I Die, Every Drop Of My Blood Will Invigorate The Nation.

All Unprejudiced Persons Objectively Surveying The Grim Events In Bangla Desh Since March 25 Have Recognized The Revolt Of 75 Million People, A People Who Were Forced To The Conclusion That Neither Their Life, Nor Their Liberty, To Say Nothing Of The Possibility Of The Pursuit Of Happiness, Was Available To Them.

Pursuit Of Happiness

I Went Back Into Politics Only When It Was Clear That Things Weren't Going As They Should Have In My Party. I Was Always Arguing, I Argued With Everyone - With My Father, With The Leaders I Had Known Since I Was A Child...and One Day, It Was In 1955, One Of Them Exclaimed, 'you Do Nothing But Criticize! If You Think You Can Correct Things, Correct Them. Go Ahead, Why Don't You Try?' Well, I Could Never Resist A Challenge, So I Tried.

I Think I'm Cold, Indeed Icy, Hard. Then There's Another Reason, One That Goes With My Frankness: I Don't Put On Act.

The Power To Question Is The Basis Of All Human Progress.

Inspirational Life

We Have Believed - And We Do Believe Now - That Freedom Is Indivisible, That Peace Is Indivisible, That Economic Prosperity Is Indivisible

To Be A Mother, A Housewife, Never Cost Me Any Sacrifice - I Savored Every Minute Of Those Years.

We Must Protect Families, We Must Protect Children, Who Have Inalienable Rights And Should Be Loved, Should Be Taken Care Of Physically And Mentally, And Should Not Be Brought Into The World Only To Suffer.

[ Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto Is Not A Very Balanced Man. When He Talks, You Never Understand What He Means. What Does He Mean This Time? That He Wants To Be Friends With Us? We've Wanted To Be Friends With Him For Some Time; I've Always Wanted To.

Even Today To Be Civilised Is Held To Be Synonymous With Being Westernised. Advanced Countries Devote Large Resources To Formulating And Spreading Ideas And Doctrines And They Tend To Impose On The Developing Nations Their Own Norms And Methods. The Pattern Of The Classical Acquisitive Society With Its Deliberate Multiplication Of Wants Not Only Is Unsuited To Conditions In Our Countries But Is Positively Harmful.

For Me The Only Point That Has Remained Unchanged Through The Years Is That In India There Is Still So Much Poverty.

Our Pride Has Grown In The Last Twenty-five Years, Though Others Don't Understand It And Underestimate It.

I Certainly Won't Have An Empty Life!

That's Always Been My Philosophy. - I've Never Thought Of The Consequences Of A Necessary Action.

Whenever You Take A Step Forward, You Are Bound To Disturb Something.

Women Sometimes Go Too Far, It's True. But It's Only When You Go Too Far That Others Listen.

A Lot Of Mythology Arose After [mahatma Gandhi] Death. But The Fact Remains That He Was An Exceptional Man, Terribly Intelligent, With Tremendous Intuition For People, And A Great Instinct For What Was Right.

The Immediate Is Often The Enemy Of The Ultimate.

... 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.

I Don't Waste Time In Flowery Small Talk, As People Do In India.

When It's Impossible, It's Better To Stoop To Compromise, Without Resisting And Without Complaining. People Who Complain Are Selfish.

We Always Said That Our Struggle Was Not Only Against The British As Representatives Of Colonialism, It Was Against All The Evil That Existed In India. The Evil Of The Feudal System, The Evil Of The System Based On Caste, The Evil Of Economic Injustice.

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