Indira Gandhi Quotes - Page 4

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.

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.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

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.

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

As a nation, I believe we've acquired faith in ourselves.

I learned very soon to get along by myself.

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.

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 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.

Forgiveness is the virtue of Brave.

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

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

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

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

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

Defeats are always pitiful. Victories are always last resources.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's not right to say that my father influenced me more than others, and I wouldn't be able to say whether my personality was formed more by my father or my mother or the Mahatma [Gandhi] or the friends who were with us.

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.