I always stayed married to my husband! Always, until the day he died! It's not true that we were separated!

I'm told [ Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto is ambitious. I hope he's very ambitious; ambition may help him see reality.

There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.

Even I, when I was a student in London, often wore Western clothes, and yet I'm the most Indian Indian I know.

We couldn't be everywhere, we couldn't see everything, and it was inevitable that some things would escape us.

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

When you govern a country, and especially a country so vast and complex as India, you never arrive at anything.

I examine the consequences later, when a new situation arises and I then face the new situation. And that's it.

I can't take it seriously when people get excited and scream that religion is in danger, and similar stupidities.

I think one should do what seems right. And if what seems right involves danger...well, one must risk the danger.

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

This is also something I've learned from experience. Didn't they perhaps give us the vote because we went too far?

Opportunities are not offered. They must be wrested and worked for. And this calls for perseverance... and courage.

As for the job of prime minister, I like it, yes. But no more than I've liked other work that I've done as an adult.

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

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.

If by happiness you mean instead an ordinary contentment, then yes - I'm fairly contented. Not satisfied - contented.

Being prime minister isn't the only job in life! As far as I'm concerned, I could live in a village and be satisfied.

I think I'm cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there's another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don't put on act.

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.

India wants to avoid a war at all costs but it is not a one-sided affair, you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

My son had nothing to do with policy or decision making, nor did I discuss the elections or any other matter with him.

I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.

In all societies that have applied a form of socialism, a certain degree of social economic equality has been achieved.

On the one hand, the rich look askance at our continuing poverty - on the other, they warn us against their own methods.

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.

In an underdeveloped society, the first anxiety is of infant mortality. In an advanced one it is to keep alive the aged.

Everything I've done, I've done because I wanted to do it. In doing it, I've plunged in headlong, always believing in it.

When you look at the beginning of the actual war, it's not hard to recognize that the Pakistanis were the ones to attack.

I always wanted to have children - if it had been up to me, I would have had eleven. It was my husband who wanted only two.

As I always say, I do not wish you an easy time, but I wish you that whatever difficulty you may have, you will overcome it.

I've never understood women who, because of their children, pose as victims and don't allow themselves any other activities.

It depends on what you mean by the word religion. Certainly I don't go to temples and pray to the gods or anything like that.

America always thought it was helping Pakistan. But if it hadn't helped Pakistan, Pakistan would have been a stronger country.

I'm not interested in one label or the other - I'm only interested in solving certain problems, in getting where I want to go.

In fact the communists gained strength in India when the people thought my party was moving to the right. And they were correct.

People who say it was her father who prepared her for the post of prime minister, it was her father who launched her, are wrong.

I was happy to be with my parents. I didn't see very much of them, so I was very happy when my father was there and out of jail.

There are moments in history when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can be lightened by recalling great moments of the past.

It's true that I refused foreign aid. It's true. It wasn't my personal decision, however - it was the whole country that said no.

I know I'll astonish everyone by talking like this, but it's God's truth. Honors have never tempted me and I've never sought them.

It is our duty to create a social milieu in which the young and the socially weak feel that the present and future belong to them.

When it's impossible, it's better to stoop to compromise, without resisting and without complaining. People who complain are selfish.

There are grave misgivings that the discussion on ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty.

I want to succeed. And I want to succeed in the best way possible, without caring whether people call my actions leftist or rightist.

It has been my experience that people who are at cross-purposes with nature are cynical about mankind and ill at ease with themselves.

To be liberated, woman must feel free to be herself, not in rivalry to man but in the context of her own capacity and her personality.

It's not at all hard to reconcile the two things if you organize your time intelligently. Even when my sons were little, I was working.

All the people who fought for freedom were my heroes. I mean, that was the sort of story I liked reading... freedom struggles and so on.

We have believed - and we do believe now - that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible

Share This Page