Indira Gandhi Quotes

Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.

My grandfather once told me that there are 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 there.

என் தந்தையின் நூல்கள் அனைத்தும் சிறையிலேயே எழுதப்பட்டன. முன்னேறத் துடிக்கும் எழுத்தாளர்களுக்கு மட்டுமல்ல, முன்னேறத் துடிக்கும் அரசியல்வாதிகளுக்கும் நான் சிறை வாழ்க்கையைப் பரிந்துரைக்கிறேன்.

You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.

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

Las personas que piensan que no son capaces de hacer algo, no lo harán nunca, aunque tengan las aptitudes

I am here today, I may not be here tomorrow. But the responsibility to look after national interest is on the shoulder of every citizen of India. I have often mentioned this earlier. Nobody knows how many attempts have been made to shoot me, lathis have been used to beat me. In Bhubaneswar itself, a brickbat hit me. They have attacked me in every possible manner. I do not care whether I live or die. I have lived a long life and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people. I am only proud of this and nothing else. 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.

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

As for the position they held in this war ... well, I think they’ve been more skillful than the Americans. Certainly they’ve had a lighter touch—had they wanted to, they could have done more for Pakistan. Isn’t that so? It was the Americans who sent the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal, not the Chinese.

We believe in freedom with a passion that only those who have been denied it for so long can understand it, We believe in equality because so many in our nation have been denied for so long, we believe in human worth for that is the basis for all our current work in India.

In India, women have never been in 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. Let’s not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti. Not only that—the struggle for inde­ pendence 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.

We make no discrimination against the adherent of any religion. All faiths are entitled to equal protection and equal respect. This we have named "Secularism", which entitles each Indian to pursue his own belief and learn more about his own creed. But it also requires him to extend the same right to persons of other religions.

In the early 1970s, the KGB presence in India became one of the largest in the world outside the Soviet bloc. Indira Gandhi placed no limit on the number of Soviet diplomats and trade officials, thus allowing the KGB and GRU as many cover positions as they wished. Nor, like many other states, did India object to admitting Soviet intelligence officers who had been expelled by less hospitable regimes. The expansion of KGB operations in the Indian subcontinent (and first and foremost in India) during the early 1970s led the FCD to create a new department. Hitherto operations in India, as in the rest of non-Communist South and South-East Asia, had been the responsibility of the Seventh Department. In 1974 the newly founded Seventeenth Department was given charge of the Indian subcontinent.

Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.

Yes, it’s true. It’s true that Joan of Arc was my dream as a little girl. I discovered her 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 in our lives.