Quotes by Jawaharlal Nehru

• The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.
• Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
• 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.
• Socialism is... not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems.
• You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.
• The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.
• Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage.
• The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
• The man who has gotten everything he wants is all in favor of peace and order.
• The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.
• The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
• The purely agitational attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.
• There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear.
• Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.
• To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.
• 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.
• What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.
• Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes.
• Great causes and little men go ill together.
• The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.
• Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.
• Ignorance is always afraid of change.
• Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.
• A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.
• 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 theory must be tempered with reality.
• 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.
• Citizenship consists in the service of the country.
• Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.
• Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
• Every little thing counts in a crisis.
• Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.
• Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.
• I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.
• It is only too easy to make suggestions and later try to escape the consequences of what we say.
• It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.
• Let us be a little humble; let us think that the truth may not perhaps be entirely with us.
• Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
• Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
• Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will killed you.