Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) was an Indian nationalist and a political leader who played a prominent role during India’s independence movement. As Mahātma Gāndhī’s chosen political heir, Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India in 1947 and served until his death.

Born in Allahābād, India, Nehru was the son of Motilal Nehru, a renowned lawyer from a family that had its roots in Kashmir. Jawaharlal was educated in England, and, influenced by Gāndhī, joined India’s fight for greater autonomy from the British. During the 1920s and the 1930s, the British imprisoned him repeatedly for civil disobedience.

After becoming the first prime minister (1947–64) of independent India, Nehru worked as a modernizer and a reformer, with an emphasis on creating a secular constitution for the newly formed state. He also implemented socialist economic reforms and earmarked India to a policy of industrialization.

Nehru was a prolific writer in English; his notable works include The Discovery of India (1945,) Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929,) and his autobiography, Toward Freedom (1936.)

Nehru’s descendants, the so-called ‘Nehru dynasty,’ have dominated Indian politics since the 1940s. His daughter Indira Gandhi succeeded him as prime minister.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jawaharlal Nehru

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Failure, Mistakes, Failures, Principles

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Capitalism

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Action

What we need is a generation of peace.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Peace

A country is known by the way it treats its animals.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: One liners, Wildlife

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

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

The basic fact of today is the tremendous pace of change in human life.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Change

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Virtue

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Culture

Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Facts

The purely agitation attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Argument

A theory must be tempered with reality.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Reality

The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Change

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
Topics: Beauty, Adventure

Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Getting Going, Inaction, Procrastination

It is far better to know our own weaknesses and failings than to point out those of another.
—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
Topics: Intuition

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

The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Danger

Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Work

You don’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Courage, History

Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Satisfaction, Action

Time is not measured by the passing of years, but by what one does, what one feels and what one achieves.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Time Management, Spending time wisely, Time, Graduation

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

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Topics: Fate, Will, Will Power, Willpower, Decisions

The ideals and objectives of yesterday was still ideals of today, but they lost some of their luster and even, as one seemed to go towards them, they lost the shining beauty which had warmed the heart and vitalized the body. Evil triumphed often enough, but what was far worse was the coarsening and distortion of what seemed so right. Was human nature so essentially bad that it would take ages of training, through suffering and misfortune, before it could behave reasonably and raise man above the creature of lust and violence and deceit that he now was? And, meanwhile, was every effort to change radically in the present or the near future doomed to failure.
—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
Topics: Difficulties, Adversity

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.
—Jawaharlal Nehru

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