Jawaharlal Nehru Best Quotes & Sayings

When the present is full of gloom, the past becomes haven of refuge that provides relief and inspiration. — Jawaharlal Nehru

I think the years I have spent in prison have been the most formative and important in my life because of the discipline, the sensations, but chiefly the opportunity to think clearly, to try to understand things. — Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Citizenship consists in the service of the country. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Restraint does not mean weakness. It does not mean giving in. — Jawaharlal Nehru

If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Samskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. If our race forgot the Buddha, the Upanishads and the great epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), India would cease to be India . — Jawaharlal Nehru

Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The best and noblest gifts of humanity cannot be the monopoly of a particular race or country; its scope may not be limited nor may it be regarded as the miser's hoard buried underground. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow. — Jawaharlal Nehru

History is the record of human progress, a record of the struggle of the advancement of the human mind, of the human spirit, towards some known or unknown objective. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Ignorance is always afraid of change. — Jawaharlal Nehru

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

America is a country no one should go to for the first time. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Poverty anywhere is a danger to prosperity everywhere — Jawaharlal Nehru

I was in high school when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled India's flag in New Delhi. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

In order to understand people, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language in the narrow sense of the mind. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of the other people. — Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Fine buildings, fine pictures and books and everything that is beautiful are certainly signs of civilization. But an even better sign is a fine man who is unselfish and works with others for the good of all. To work together is better than to work singly, and to work together for the common good is best of all. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe. — Jawaharlal Nehru

I have always thought that the best way to find out what is right and what is not right, what should be done and what should not be done, is not to give a sermon, but to talk and discuss, and out of discussion sometimes a little bit of truth comes out. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The future has to be lived before it can be written about. — Jawaharlal Nehru

No country or people who are slaves to dogma and the dogmatic mentality can progress, and unhappily our country and people have become extraordinarily dogmatic and little-minded — Jawaharlal Nehru

Please remember that law and sense are not always the same. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The traditional Indian view was to protect our independence; it was therefore quite consistent with the requirements of the time and the feeling of the people. The world may have been misled by Jawaharlal Nehru's own international projection, which in fact had no reality on the ground. — Subramanian Swamy

A man who is afraid will do anything. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Science and technology have freed humanity from many burdens and given us this new perspective and great power. This power can be used for the good of all. If wisdom governs our actions; but if the world is mad or foolish, it can destroy itself just when great advances and triumphs are almost without its grasp. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Those who boast are seldom the great. — Jawaharlal Nehru

A country is known by the way it treats its animals — Jawaharlal Nehru

Play the hand you're dealt. — Jawaharlal Nehru

A great disaster is a symbol to us to remember all the big things of life and forget the small things, of which we have thought too much. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The boundaries of democracy have to be widened so as to include economic equality also. This is the great revolution through which we are all passing. — Jawaharlal Nehru

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

We can't encourage narrow mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought. — Jawaharlal Nehru

What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. 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 — Jawaharlal Nehru