Quote collection
260 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I myself, in my heart, say that people should have all the children they want. But it's a mistaken idea, like many of our ideas that go back thousands of years, and it must be rooted out."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"At no point, at a very important point: that of having convinced the Indians that they can do things."
"I always stayed married to my husband! Always, until the day he died! It's not true that we were separated!"
"If I'm happy, I look happy; if I'm angry, I show it. Without worrying about how others may react."
"I examine the consequences later, when a new situation arises and I then face the new situation. And that's it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We couldn't be everywhere, we couldn't see everything, and it was inevitable that some things would escape us."
"[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.'"
"I grew up like a boy, also because most of the children who came to our house were boys."
"It was the very fact that no one ever imposed anything on me or tried to impose himself on the others."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I'm told [ Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto is ambitious. I hope he's very ambitious; ambition may help him see reality."