Indira Gandhi

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

"I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term was completed was abhorrent to me."

"The day I stop fighting is the day I stop living."

"There are moments in history when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can be lightened by recourse to the sustaining power of faith."

"I am a woman and I am a Prime Minister."

"Lack of confidence sometimes reflects lack of competence."

"My father was a statesman, I am a political woman."

"You must learn to forgive yourself as easily as you forgive others."

"Democracy is the best political system, despite its shortcomings."

"We live in a period of loose ends."

"The power to question is the basis of all progress."

"A nation's strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own."

"Education is the most powerful tool which you can use to change the world."

"We should resent working only for food and survival."

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of existence."

"Life is like a game of chess."

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which support that theory."

"Only strong people can afford to be gentle."

"Science is neither good nor bad - it is what we do with it that matters."

"I would like to think I am a dreamer and a doer."

"The people are the masters; everything should be done for them."

"Courage comes from our willingness to trust ourselves."

"Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave."

"History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of people."

"Beauty is the promise of happiness."

"Our age is bent on mending the world."

"The question is not whether we can afford to invest in our children, but whether we can afford not to."

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."

"I have never understood the concept of surrender."