Top 143 Quotes & Sayings by Jawaharlal Nehru

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru.

Last updated on November 10, 2024.

Jawaharlal Nehru was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he served as the country's prime minister for 17 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, his books written in prison, such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), An Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946), have been read around the world.

Indian - Leader | November 14, 1889 - May 27, 1964

Source: Wikipedia

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Ignorance is always afraid of change.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Great causes and little men go ill together.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

Every little thing counts in a crisis.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

A theory must be tempered with reality.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

Jawaharlal Nehru

There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.

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

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty and charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. So many people seem to go about their life's business with their eyes shut. Indeed, they object to other people keeping their eyes open. Unable to play themselves, they dislike the play of others.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

A country is known by the way it treats its animals

Jawaharlal Nehru

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.

Jawaharlal Nehru

It is a fundamental rule of human life, that if the approach is good, the response is good.

Jawaharlal Nehru

There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Act with courage and dignity; stick to the ideals that give meaning to life.

Jawaharlal Nehru

To be successful in life what you need is education.

Jawaharlal Nehru

A man who is afraid will do anything.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized on this earth, capable of becoming master of his fate and captain of his soul.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Jawaharlal Nehru

It is far better to know our own weaknesses and failures than to point out those of others.

Jawaharlal Nehru

You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Success often comes to those who dare to act. It seldom goes to the timid who are ever afraid of the consequences.

Jawaharlal Nehru

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