“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.”

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 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.

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

in today’s world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence.

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.

All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.

Rebels and non-conformists are often the pioneers and designers of change.

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.

Every democratic system evolves its own conventions. It is not only the water but the banks which make the river.

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.

I will never rue the love inside of my heart because I have a king to uphold and queens to raise.

You blame your father but it was your mother who did not keep you safe -why you won’t trust women.

Children raised by mothers who do not keep their children sheltered from the wrath of their fathers, end up mistrusting women.

I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.

I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.

Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained,I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.

No one can have God as his father who does not have the Church as his mother.

The most important thing my father taught me is that every man has to stand up for his rights.