“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.”

I fall in love with anything I do and I always try to do it well.

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

I was a perfect housewife. Being a mother has always been the job I liked best. Absolutely.

Life is a continuous process of adjustment.

Never forget that when we are silent, we are one. And when we speak we are two.

To me the function of politics is to make possible the desirable.

Let’s not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti.

Ability is not always gauged by examination.

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.

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

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

The future doesn’t frighten me, even if it threatens to be full of other difficulties.

Mankind will endure when the world appreciates the logic of diversity.

The purpose of life is to believe, to hope, and to strive.

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.

Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.

To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.

Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.

Death itself does not frighten me; it is the jump I am afraid of.

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.

The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.

Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.

If your humanity is dead, you need a lot of morality. If your humanity is alive and overflowing, you will naturally do the best for yourself and everyone around you.