Jawaharlal Nehru

“Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions.”

“But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.”

“The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.”

“The light has gone out, I said and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light.”

“The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country and the world will see it.”

“That great disaster is a symbol to us to remember the big things of life and to forget the small things. We have thought too much of the small things.”

“It is difficult for most of us to think of our ideals and our theories in terms of reality.”

“History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view. Or, at any rate, the victors' version is given prominence and holds the field.”

“I want to go rapidly towards my objective. But fundamentally even the results of action do not worry me so much.”

“Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.”

“You know that I have had strong leanings towards Communism and have many friends among Communists.”

“We have done no better thing than this [agreeing that Tibet belongs to China] since we became independent.”

“Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes”

“We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for "secular".”

“We have laid down in our constitution that India is a secular state. That does not mean irreligion. it means equal respect for all faiths and equal opportunities for those who profess any faith.”

“War is the negation of truth and humanity. War may be unavoidable sometimes, but its progeny are terrible to contemplate.”

“It is dangerous and harmful to be guided in our life's course by hatreds and aversions, for they are wasteful of energy and limit and twist the mind and prevent it from perceiving truth.”

“The world of today has achieved much, but for all its declared love for humanity, it has based itself far more on hatred and violence than on the virtues that make one human.”

“The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.”

“They preferred to die rather than lose their freedom, and those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated.”

“If the means are wrong, it will vitiate the end or divert us in a wrong direction. Means and ends are thus intimately and inextricably connected and cannot be separated.”

“That detachment is neither isolationism nor indifference nor neutrality when peace or freedom is threatened.”

“When man’s liberty or peace is in danger we cannot and shall not be neutral; neutrality then would be a betrayal of what we have fought for and stand for.”

“The world cannot for long maintain peace if half of it is enslaved and despised.”

“Political subjection, racial inequality, economic inequality and misery, these are the evils that we have to remove if we would ensure peace.”

“It is not only because peace is good, but out of selfish reasons. It is an absolute necessity.”

“There is another aspect to be considered and that is the brutalising effect of war on humanity. War may result in degradation of large number of human beings.”