Best 121 quotes of Jawaharlal Nehru on MyQuotes

A country is known by the way it treats its animals

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

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

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.

A language is something infinitely greater than grammar and philology. It is the poetic testament of the genius of a race and a culture, and the living embodiment of the thoughts and fancies that have moulded them

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

All the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

As fear is a close companion to falsehood, so truth follows fearlessness.

A theory must be tempered with reality.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength.

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.

A tyrst with destiny - A the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and Freedom

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.

Blood and tears are going to be our lot, whether we like them or not. Our blood and tears will flow; maybe the parched soil of India needs them so that the fine flower of freedom may grow again.

By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and a Hindu only by accident of birth.

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.

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

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

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. It is never a narrowing of the mind or a restriction of the human spirit or the country's spirit.

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

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

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

Do not advise too much: do the job yourself. This is the only advice you can give to others. Do it and others will follow.

Every little thing counts in a crisis.

Evil unchecked grows, evil tolerated poisons the whole system.

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

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

For the first time i began to think, consciously and deliberately of religion and other worlds. The Hindu religion especially went up in my estimation; not the ritual or ceremonial part, but it's great books, the "Upnishads," and the "Bhagavad Gita.

Great causes and little men go ill together.

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.

I am getting old and the sign of old age is that I begin to philosophize and ponder over problems which should not be my concern at all.

I am the last Englishman to rule in India.

I do not attach much importance to America's bombs. I attach importance to her great vitality and integrity. The strength of America is deeper and more significant than her financial power.

If in the modern world wars have unfortunately to be fought (and they do, it seems) then they must be stopped at the first possible moment, otherwise they corrupt us, they create new problems and make our future even more uncertain. That is more than morality; it's sense.

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 .

If the world suffers from mental deterioration or from moral degradation, then something goes wrong at the very root of civilization or culture. Even though that civilization may drag out for a considerable period, it grows less and less vital and ultimately tumbles down.

Ignorance is always afraid of change.

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.

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

I have long believed that the only way peace can be achieved is through world government.

India cannot sit on the fence anymore. It may have to make a choice. Either way it is going face problems.

India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age

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.

In our society competitive capitalism has put family life and working life on a collision course.In Canada statistics show that over 70 percent of the burden of caring for children, the aged, the disabled and the sick falls on women most of whom receive no pay for these very essential tasks.Normally speaking, it may be said that the forces of capitalism, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer and thus increase the gap between them.

In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also, thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.

I think that sacrifices of animals in the name of religion are barbarous and they degrade the name of religion.

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.

It is always more difficult to fight one's own failings than the power of an adversary.

It is better to understand a part of truth and apply it to our lives than to understand nothing at all and flounder helplessly in a vain attempt to pierce the mystery of existence.

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 the truth.