Jawaharlal Nehru

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.

Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage.

Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes.

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

The purely agitational attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.

I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

A theory must be tempered with reality.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.

The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.

You don’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.

Ignorance is always afraid of change.

To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.

Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.

It is only too easy to make suggestions and later try to escape the consequences of what we say.

Socialism is… not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new; when an age ends; and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.

The man who has gotten everything he wants is all in favor of peace and order.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

Let us be a little humble; let us think that the truth may not perhaps be entirely with us.

There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear.

Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.

Every little thing counts in a crisis.

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

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

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

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.

It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Great causes and little men go ill together.