Indira Gandhi

“This is why we feel that democracy's important: because democracy allows you to have small explosions and therefore avoid the bigger explosions.”

“We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further, and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?”

“I think basically I'm lazy, but I have a housewife's mentality when I go about my job.”

“The power to question is the basis of all human progress.”

“I have lived a long life, and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people. I am only proud of this and nothing else. I shall continue to serve until my last brea...”

“Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.”

“I don't think my father was my mentor.”

“Happiness is a state of mind, you know. I don't think you are permanently happy. One is happy about certain things and not so happy about others.”

“I am not a person to be pressured - by anybody or any nation.”

“There is not love where there is no will.”

“I've never turned to anybody for advice and counsel. Even when I was a very small child, I had to stand on my feet because of the circumstances of those times, and somehow, the circumstances...”

“You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

“My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not.”

“Winning or losing of the election is less important than strengthening the country.”

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

“I'm certainly not a workaholic.”