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 breath, and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it.
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 have remained more or less the same. I have to take my own decisions.
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.
